Judges say IEBC complied with server access orders amid Raila team concerns

Justice Isaac Lenaola [Collins Kweyu, Standard]

The Supreme Court said on Thursday that IEBC complied with orders directing the commission to grant presidential petitioner Raila Odinga's team access to its servers.

This was after Philip Murgor, a lawyer representing Odinga and his co-petitioner Martha Karua, said on Thursday morning, September 1, that the electoral agency had not fully complied with the court's orders.

Murgor said IEBC refused to grant supervised access to Server Number Five, which had "footprints of suspicious activities".

He alleged that his team had observed "deletion of vital logs".

"We are concerned that the delay on the part of IEBC [to grant us supervised access to Server Number Five] is to allow the deletion of vital data," said Murgor.

"We are requesting the court to direct the IEBC to allow us forensic access to all the eight servers. We're also requesting that we be provided with copies of the logs," he added.

Justice Isaac Lenaola, who spoke on behalf of the seven Supreme Court judges, said the court had been informed by its representatives to the exercise, led by the registrar, that the IEBC had fully complied with the judges' orders, and therefore Murgor's claim would be subjected to further scrutiny on Friday, September 2 during the rejoinder session.

The court had, on Tuesday, August 30 ordered the IEBC to grant the Azimio team supervised access to the commission's eight servers which were used in receiving forms 34A from the polling stations.

Murgor's Thursday request to have the forensic access into IEBC's servers granted was denied by the judges, who said the Azimio team had the opportunity to make such a request on Tuesday, but they did not.

"Forensic imaging takes hours to complete, and instructions must be given [to the IEBC] right away. Alternatively, perhaps now is the time for the court to consider extending [the] time [it allowed for access to the servers]," Murgor submitted.

Justice Lenaola deferred the matter to Friday.

"Should there be any issues left unaddressed, let those issues be raised when we (Supreme Court judges) receive the [server access] report later this morning. You'll, thereafter, be in a position to submit on what servers, you believe, you were denied access to," said Justice Lenaola.