Blow to DCI boss Kinoti as court declines to suspend his jail term

Another attempt by DCI boss George Kinoti to skip a four-month jail term has failed miserably after a judge rejected, in total, fresh evidence which the convict was hanging on.

Justice Antony Mrima insisted that it is the Firearms Licensing Board which was in possession of the firearms confiscated from homes of businessman Jimi Wanjigi in Nairobi and Malindi.

Mrima said that when the orders where issued in June 2019, DCI officers told the court that the firearms were in their possession and not in the custody of the board as Kinoti alleges.

A further attempt to sneak in a letter dated November 27, 2021, from the licensing board inviting Wanjigi to go and collect his firearms also hit a snag since it was brought to the court's attention after the delivery of the ruling seeking to set aside the jail term.

In rejecting the fresh application by the Attorney General Kihara Kariuki through lawyer Cecil Miller and a state counsel MS Mwangi to suspend the sentence on the strength of purported new evidence, the judge said Kinoti never tabled any correspondences of transfer of the firearms from the DCI offices to the Firearms Licensing Board for safe custody.

"There is no evidence to show how the seized firearms were moved from DCI offices to the licensing board," Justice Mrima ruled.

The court's decision is a major blow to the DCI boss who has fought tooth and nail to avoid being jailed.