DPP applies for fresh orders to search Akashas residences

FROM LEFT: Baktash Akasha, Hussein Gullam and Abdalla Akasha in a Mombasa court on Friday. The suspects, who are out on a Sh30 million bond each, are battling a plan to have them extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. [PHOTO/MAARUFU MOHAMED/STANDARD]

Mombasa, Kenya - The State is seeking fresh authority to search the Nyali residences of the Akasha brothers for more evidence to have them extradited to America.

Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Alex Muteti filed an application in court on Friday seeking orders for the fresh search.

“We still want to search this house and also weigh the drug being held by the police after it was seized from one of the suspects,” Mr Muteti said.

But the Akashas have indicated they will oppose the application.

They further demand that their own application to have the State return gold and other property taken by police from their houses on November 10 last year is heard first.

On Friday, Cliff Ombeta and Timothy Bryant, lawyers for the Akashas, claimed police were illegally hiding about $23,000 (Sh2 million), 16 mobile phones, a Rolex watch and three kilogrammes of gold jewellery seized in the November 10 raid on the residences.

The Akasha brothers, Baktash and Ibrahim, and their Indian and Pakistan co-suspects Vijay Goswami and Gulam Hussein respectively, were arrested in a joint operation by American and Kenyan anti-narcotics agents.

The four are facing extradition proceedings to the US where a judge issued an arrest warrant on November 10, alleging they were planning to export heroin and other banned drugs into New York.

seizing property

The four are out on bond and on Friday, they accused the State of raiding their houses and seizing property without a warrant from the courts.

But the State insists its agents followed the law and sought orders and now wants to make another go for the residences.

On Friday, Mr Muteti told outgoing Mombasa Chief Magistrate Maxwell Gicheru that besides an order to search the houses, police also wanted an order to weigh and sample 98 packets of heroin recovered from one of the suspected drug traffickers on November 10 last year.

Muteti told Mr Gicheru that the drugs in question were part of the exhibits that will be relied on during the extradition proceedings and trial in the US against the suspects.

“Whatever material is collected is preserved and may be handed over to the US authorities for trial of the suspects,” said Muteti.

“The seized substance held in Nairobi is to be weighed and sampled for analysis in the presence of the suspects as required by the law,” added the assistant DPP.

During the raid, guns issued by the Government to the brothers' wives were taken away by the officers.

Mr Ombeta accused US security agents and Kenya’s Anti Narcotics Police Unit of raiding his clients' houses without search warrants and seizing valuables illegally.

“We want to know why the police raided the houses of my clients yet they had no search warrants,” said Ombeta.

RIVAL APPLICATION

But Gicheru declined to hear the rival application. He further directed the parties to place the file before the new chief magistrate on May 6.

The Akashas and their co-accused are out on bond of Sh30 million each. They are reporting to the County Criminal Investigations Department twice every week.

They are not required to leave Mombasa County without the authority of the court.