Clear Jonah Anguka over Robert Ouko murder, court orders DCI

Former DC Jonah Anguka. [File, Standard]

The High Court in Nairobi has ordered the police to remove former District Commissioner Jonah Anguka from its red list.

Justice Anthony Mrima ended Anguka’s woes that haunted him for 29 years after being suspected to have masterminded the death of former Foreign Affairs Minister Robert John Ouko.

Following the murder of Dr Ouko on the night of February 12 and 13, 1990, at Got Alila in the then Kisumu District, Anguka was charged with the murder at the High Court in Nairobi.

After a full trial of Criminal Case No. 51 of 1993, the High Court on July 29, 1994, acquitted him.

Despite being cleared by the court, Anguka is still on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) list, flagged for murder.

However, the court on Thursday handed him a reprieve by ordering the DCI to clear and issue him with a police clearance certificate.

The judge noted that Anguka had twice applied for a clearance certificate but the DCI system indicated that he had an outstanding criminal case.

“There is no doubt that the petitioner was acquitted of the murder charge in the criminal case. That fact is proved. It, however, seems that the second respondent did not update its records accordingly so as to reflect that the criminal case was concluded and the petitioner acquitted of the murder charge. I say so since the certificates dated September 26, 2016, and July 7, 2020, respectively indicated that the criminal case was still outstanding,” said Justice Mrima. 

The late Dr Robert Ouko. [File, Standard]

Anguka was tried for Ouko’s murder and acquitted by Justice Daniel Sultan Anganyaya in 1994.

He immediately sought political asylum in the United States of America and thereafter became a US citizen.

It follows that he lost the citizenship of his birth country, according to the then Kenyan Constitution.

After the passage of the 2010 Constitution, Anguka sought to regain his Kenyan citizenship.

He then began the application for the citizenship process as required in law. However, one of the requirements in the application was a police clearance certificate, which he has been hunting for to date.

Anguka came to know that his name was on DCI’s red list and that he had a ‘pending’ case when he applied for an E-passport to allow him to travel back to the USA.

In his court case against the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji, Anguka said he is sickly and requires to leave the country for the USA. However, his old passport had expired and therefore cannot be authorised to travel using it.

Anguka, in court papers, narrated that among the requirement for the new passport is to be cleared by DCI.

Upon filing for a clearance certificate, it returned that Anguka had an outstanding case of murder.

Following the shocking reply, Anguka said he wrote to the Judiciary seeking certified copies of his trial and the judgment.

However, the file could not be found.

“We wish to inform you that our efforts made to trace the above file have not been successful. We are therefore unable to certify the proceedings and judgment as requested,” High Court’s Senior Deputy Registrar J. Kamau responded.

Kamau continued: “However, we wish to confirm that according to our records, the case was finalised and the accused person acquitted by Justice Anganyanya.”

Another puzzle into Anguka’s trial was that the court’s register did not indicate the date he was acquitted, although it indicated that the court had found him to be innocent.

In a judgment he attached to his court documents, Justice Anganyanya found that Ouko’s killers neatly eliminated Anguka.

“The manner heinous act was planned and eventually executed as Dr West put it, was so neat and professional that it could not have been undertaken by an ordinary person in the nature of the accused,” Anganyanya ruled.

In his supporting affidavit, Anguka said that learning that he has never been cleared for 29 years to date is a double punishment.

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