Court quashes criminal cases against two businessmen in battle over Salama Beach Hotel

Stephano Uccelli (right) and Isaac Rodrot alias Mwaura at a Mombasa Court in Mombasa County on Tuesday 2nd June 2020, where they have denied forgery charges over the ownership of Temple Point Resort, formerly Salama Beach Beach Hotel in Watamu, Kilifi County. The were released on a cash bail of Sh 200,000 each and their case will be mentioned on 18th June 2020. [Kelvin Karani.]

The High Court has quashed criminal charges against Italian national Steffano Uccelli and Isaac Rodrot, alias Mwaura, in a 23-year battle over the multi-billion iconic Temple Beach Hotel in Mombasa.

Three High Court Judges, Mugure Thande, Anne Ong’injo, and Kizito Magare, unanimously agreed that the criminal cases against the two were instituted for ulterior motives and were not in the public interest.

 The bench, headed by Justice Mugure, observed that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) claimed that the Director of Public Prosecution initiated the criminal charges against James Maganga based on a complaint.

However, they were of the view that it was impossible to detach the criminal cases from the ownership wrangles between Uccelli and Rodrot on the one hand and Hans Jurgen Langer and his wife, Zahra Langer, on the other.

According to the Judges, it was clear that Hans was the person who complained about Rodrot, not  Maganga, as the DCI claimed. They asserted that the criminal case before the magistrate’s court was trying to reopen a decision by the Court of Appeal on April 30, 2015, which directed Hans and Zahra to hand over all the properties belonging to Salama to Rodrot and Uccelli within 7 days of the ruling.

“ In light of the foregoing, to proceed with the prosecution of Rodrot with the glaring contradiction as to who the complainant is and in the face of the ruling of 30.4.15 and the decision of the Court of Appeal, is in our view, an attempt to relitigate the matter in the subordinate court. This defies the constitutional hierarchy of the court system in Kenya,” ruled Justices Thande, Ong’injo and Magare.

They also faulted the DCI arrested the two, arguing that they were not given a right to a fair trial.

The Salama wars started in Italy. A company called Adinos A.G (Adinos) successfully sued another company, Viaggi Del Ventagglio (Viaggi), and was awarded Euros 825,000 (Sh 111 million at the current exchange rate) with interest.

This was in addition to Euros 2420 (Sh 326,458) costs.

However, instead of recovering the money, Adinos ceded it to Accredo A.G., which owed it.

The deal was that Accredo would take over Adinos’s role and recover any debt issued against Viaggi.

However, Accredo would later learn that Viaggo was plagued by liquidity issues and had no attachable assets except those held by its Kenyan subsidiary, Salaa Beach Hotel Limited.

 What would follow were back-to-back court battles between Hans Jurgen Langer and his wife Zahra Langer on one side and Ucelli and Rodrot on the other side over who owns the luxurious hotel in Watamu, Mombasa County.

Some cases were civil, while others were criminal.

There is a pending civil case on who between them owns the hotel.

In the meantime, Uccelli and Rodrot were charged in a criminal case before the Malindi magistrate’s court. Uccelli was accused of perjury, while Rodrot, his co-director, faced an alleged offense of unauthorized access to computer data.

The two moved to the High Court seeking to quash the charges.

On the one hand, Uccelli argued that he had been listed as a witness against Rodrot despite being unaware of the charges and what was alleged to have transpired.

Uccelli testified that he wrote a complaint to the DPP but never received a response. Instead, he said, the court summoned him to testify on February 5, 2019. He asserted that the statement was fake.

Uccelli said he informed the court that he was not the author of the statement. The DPP then asked that he be declared a hostile witness.

The Italian national said he was arrested and released on a Sh 50,000 cash bail.

He said he then moved to the High Court and obtained orders blocking the DPP from arresting him based on the recanted statement. Nevertheless, despite the court orders, he was charged with perjury.

 On his end, Rodrot told the court that he is a shareholder of Salama Beach Hotel Limited (Salama) with 40,000 shares.

He further stated that he was Salama's chief executive officer prior to 2009. Rodrot added that he was the sole agent of Ventaglio International S.A Luxemburg, which holds 41,000 shares in Salama.

He also said he has a long, convoluted ownership tussle with Hans over Salama. The court heard that Rodrot won HCCC No. 118 of 2009 on April 30, 2015.

 He added that the decision vindicated him of all Hans's accusations in the criminal cases. He further stated that he had been dispossessed of his shares in Salama on January 21, 2010, but the orders were set aside, restoring ownership.

Rodrot said that the orders were upheld by the Court of Appeal in Civil Appeal No. 36 of 2015 and effected by the registrar of companies.

He further stated that he informed the DPP and the police about the court battle and its outcome numerous times, but they have yet to take action.

Additionally, he lamented that they ignored the decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal and proceeded to prosecute him endlessly on unfounded claims and charges.

Uccelli and Rodrot lamented that they were arrested during the COVID-19 pandemic, bundled into police vehicles, and stacked with other persons. They said that the officers exposed them to the deadly disease and took them to Malindi Law Court instead of Mombasa while knowing that there was restrictions to move from one place to another.

The DPP and DCI opposed the case. Peter Muli, an officer attached to the DCI Headquarters, said that they were treating the hotel as a crime scene. According to him, the DCI was unaware of any judgment appointing Rodrot as a director or allotting him any shares in Salama. Muli also claimed that a report from the business registration services did not support Rodrot and Uccelli’s claims of directorship and shareholding before December 14, 2009.

The officer also claimed that there was evidence to prove forgery and fraud against the two.

 The DCI officer asserted that the senior registrar of companies, Alixe Mwendwa, had distanced herself from two affidavits that supported Rodrot and Uccelli’s position. At the same time, he said, the registrar of companies Faith Chirchir had also distanced herself from the CR12 used by the two.

In addition, he alleged that Rodrot was a mere employee and not a shareholder.

In his replying affidavit, Hans supported the DPP and DCI. He denied that Rodrot is a director. He also disputed that Uccelli is a shareholder.

 Elma Wagner, the director of Temple Point also urged the court to dismiss the sae. Wagner said that Temple Point leased Salama for 15 years for Sh 1.4 million to Sh 5.4 million and had invested over Sh 698 million upto 2017.

He argued that the cases had caught up with them, which led them to file an insolvency case in Nairobi . The court heard that Temple Point got orders stopping any eviction. However, t he claimed that Rodrot and Uccelli evicted them on February 20, 2020.