High Court suspends ex-governor Mike Sonko prosecution in Ksh10 million graft case

By , K24 Digital
On Thu, 3 Jun, 2021 17:47 | < 1 min read
Sonko

High Court Judge Justice Wakiaga has temporarily suspended Ksh10 million graft case against former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko.

In a ruling delivered on Thursday, he stopped further prosecution of Sonko in a corruption case before trial magistrate Daglous Ogoti pending the hearing of a petition seeking to have the magistrate restrained from handling the case.

"That l do hereby grant the petitioner(Sonko) temporarily conservatory orders up to June 23, 2021. The orders are in respect to Anti-Corruption case number 1 of 2020," ordered Justice Wakiaga.

The orders come after Sonko moved to the High Court's Anti-Corruption Division in March seeking to accuse Ogoti of bias and wanting him to be stopped from handling the case.

He argued that if Ogoti is allowed to continue hearing the case against him, he stands to suffer irreparable damage.

He explains that he once asked the magistrate to recuse himself from his case.

“The petitioner has a reasonable apprehension that during the trial of his case before chief magistrate Douglas Ogoti, good counsel, fairness and impartiality will not prevail and therefore the petitioner does not feel that his fundamental rights to a fair trial will be respected in the said court,” he said.

Sonko wants the case to be assigned to another magistrate of similar jurisdiction to ensure a fair trial.

In the case before the court, Sonko was accused of demanding a ksh10 million bribe from Web Tribe Ltd through ROG Security Limited as an inducement to facilitate payments by the county government.

Web Tribe Ltd had been contracted by the Nairobi City County Government six years ago to collect revenue.

The former governor is said to have committed the offence between January 10 and 19, 2019 within the city.

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