Ruto in bid to have fraud charges dropped

Suspended Cabinet minister William Ruto wants the court to acquit him of criminal charges in a Sh96 million fraud case.

Mr Ruto, through lawyer Kioko Kilukumi, told Nairobi chief magistrate Gilbert Mutembei he would be presenting an application on Tuesday morning asking the court to set him free.

The announcement came following the closure of the prosecution’s case against the MP and three others.

The State brought in 20 out of the 24 witnesses it initially intended to give evidence.

On Monday, the investigating officer, Mr Kennedy Wanjala, answered defence queries on the inconsistencies in the charge sheet and those in the evidence tabled in court.

Lawyer Katwa Kigen, who is also representing Mr Ruto challenged the charge sheet saying it had no police case number nor particulars of the charges.

According to the charge sheet Mr Ruto and two companies associated with him are accused of selling government land to the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC).

In one of the charges Mr Ruto is said to have received Sh9.9 million and Sh28.9 million for the plots. The defence noted that the land reference numbers were the same in both charges. But the officer said this was a typing error.

Also in court to testify on Monday was lawyer Tom Kajwang’ who handled the transactions on behalf of KPC.

The lawyer said he was “convinced the titles were valid and proceeded to handle the transactions.”

Earlier, the court was informed that more than 30 forest land title deeds were deposited with Transnational Bank as security to prevent the sale of Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC).

A senior manager at the bank, Mr Fareed Abdul Sheikh, told the court that 32 titles were deposited to replace a title deed for KICC that had been deposited in the bank by Kenya Times Media House.