Judge cancels sale of Mombasa postal land

The High Court in Mombasa has nullified the sale of public land in Mombasa belonging to Postal Corporation of Kenya that was fraudulently sold to private developers.

Justice Stephen Kibunja directed the Mombasa Land Registrar to cancel the entries made on the land at Mwembelegeza in Bamburi and revert it back to the National Land Commission (NLC) to be registered as public land.

Justice Kibunja said that the entire process of alienation of land was irregular, illegal and without the sanction of law.

“It follows therefore that any alienation, transfers and or sub-divisions of the suit property thereof were illegal, unlawful, unprocedural, null and void ab initio and cannot vest an indefeasible proprietary interest and title in favour of the private developers,” said Justice Kibunja.

Justice Kibunja said that the suits filed between Ibrahim Zia trading as Ibado Enterprises, Joel Ria, Discount Group of Companies, Shamusdeen Ibrahim, Shahed Shamsu, Sajja Kashmiri trading as Kashimir Investments were all aimed at sanitising their illegal, unlawful and unprocedural conversion of public land to private land through fraudulent transactions they orchestrated through their advocate Leonard Shimaka.

“They used the court processes to obtain orders that they used to effect transfers from one to the other and reconstruction of the green card over the suit property. However, as the suit property was not available for alienation or being transferred and or sub-divided, the respondents never acquired good title as the plot remained public property,” said Justice Kibunja.

Commission for Human Rights and Justice Director Julius Ogogoh filed a petition to stop the grabbing of the said land. Ogogoh said the suit property had been reserved for public purpose and the procedure for alienating public land to private land had not been followed.

He said the property was illegally alienated by Zia with the assistance and connivance of Shamusdeen Ibrahim, Shahed Shamsu, Sajja Kashmiri t/a Kashimir Investments, Shimaka Leonard, John Wanjohi, Mary Kai and County Government of Mombasa.

Ogogoh said that after illegally acquiring the said land, Zia sold it to Joel Ria who sub-divided it before selling it to Discount Group of Companies and Kashimir Investments.

He said all transactions relating to the property were done through Shimaka, who represented both the Discount Group Companies and Kashimir Investments.