Court acquits Athletics Kenya official of incitement charges

Michael Ollinga

The High Court in Eldoret has acquitted Athletics Kenya Central Rift Chairman Abraham Mutai of incitement charges after he filed an appeal against a ruling by a lower court.

Henry Kiplimo Rono had sued Mr Mutai for inciting the public during the party elections' campaigns last year, alleging that his utterances had attracted public outrage against him.

Rono had told the court how Mutai, during the said rally on January 18, 2013, had told the public he had stolen Constituency Development Funds (CDF) and stolen votes hence making the public hostile to him.

The magistrate court in Eldoret had issued Mutai with a two-year probation sentence for incitement of the public.

However, Lady Justice Grace Ngenye, while handling the appeal, raised many irregularities with how the previous court and prosecution had conducted the case thus impeding fair justice administration.

In his appeal, through Mr Timon Lel, Mutai challenged his sentence citing a defective charge sheet, denial of a fair hearing and irregularities on how witness statements were recorded.

Lady Justice G W. Ngenye in her evaluation said the charge sheet was indeed defective because the prosecution witness statements were contradictory to what was written on the charge sheet.

"The charge sheet was defected deliberately as the offense was not accurately spelt out to meet the threshold of establishing a case against the appellant," she said.

She further stated that prosecution witness number two, who is the wife to the applicant, did not state the exact words which were supposed to be duplicated on the charge sheet to institute a case.

On the second matter of unfair trial, the judge said that there were irregularities of huge concern as the police recorded statements before the applicant raised complaint.

"This shows the complainant worked in cahoots with the police as they prepared the statements on January 21 and the complaint had been raised on 24th which beats legal logic," said Lady Justice Ngenye.

The judge added that she found in her assessment that probation report was prepared prior to the court ruling which is contrary to article 50 of the constitution.

"There was prior knowledge of conviction of the accused prior to the ruling; even the trial court itself should not have knowledge of how the ruling is going to be. Somebody had predetermined interest to deliver an unfair ruling and overstepped basic legal procedures," she added.

She said the magistrate therefore must have directed the sentence in her personal interest keeping in mind that the accused person's lawyer had informed the court that the two parties had a long standing grudge.

"I therefore dismiss the previous sentence since it was made on insufficient evidence and misdirected because no aspect of violence was associated with whatever that was considered incitement, the legal procedure was marred and unfair," she ruled.