Mombasa magistrate Kagoni Edgar Matsigulu on Monday filed a case seeking to stop his prosecution over alleged theft of court exhibits
The Judiciary staff said there is no justification upon which he should be charged for the missing 10.022kg of heroin valued at Sh30 million.
Further, the magistrate claims the move by the Director of Public Prosecutions to press charges against him is misguided and mean to harass and intimidate him.
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Following the application, the court ordered Matsigulu released on Sh200,000 cash bail or Sh100, 000 bond with surety of a similar amount pending hearing and determination of his case.
The heroin belonged to Hussein Masoud Eid, who was in December 2018 charged with trafficking narcotics.
Masoud was arraigned before the Mombasa magistrate.
On December 4, 2018, the drugs were produced in court as exhibit in the case against Masoud. Also produced in court, was Masoud’s Sh600, 000.
As the case continued, the investigating officer, Mjomba, asked to keep the exhibits, a request that Magistrate Matsigulu rejected.
The magistrate, however, directed that the exhibits be stored at the court’s exhibits store. Matsigulu, however, is accused of not putting that instruction in writing.
On June 11, 2019, Kagoni found the suspect, Masoud, guilty of trafficking narcotics and sentenced him to 30 years in jail and fined him Sh90 million.
The magistrate, however, ordered that the Sh600, 000 which was seized alongside the illegal drugs be returned to Masoud.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigation officers said that on diverse dates between June 28, 2019 and July 26, 2019, they discovered that the heroin was missing from the exhibits store.
The crime investigations unit said that following the unexplained disappearance of the heroin, the magistrate aided the commission of an offence.
