Dubai Bank chiefs charged with plotting to defraud Bank of Africa

What you need to know:

  • A defence lawyer, Kirathe Wandugi, urged the court to grant lenient bail terms to the four who volunteered to attend court saying “they are jobless and all their funds have been detained in the bank closed down by CBK.”

  • The prosecution did not oppose the release of Zubeidi, Sheikh, Ali, Munyori and Gatobu who were freed on a cash bail of Sh300,000 or an alternative of Sh1 million bond.

Two directors and three managers of the collapsed Dubai Bank have been charged with conspiring to defraud another lender more than Sh48 million.

Messrs Hassan Zubeidi, Ali Sheikh, Adam Ali Mwanaidi, Faith Wairimu Munyoru and Robert Gatobu are alleged to have conspired to defraud Bank of Africa Kenya Limited Sh48.2 million on July 2  2015.

The four were accused of committing the offence at Dubai Bank Kenya Limited (DBKL).

The bank has since been placed under statutory management by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) after facing liquidity problems.

Besides the four who appeared before senior principal magistrate Martha Mutuku, two other senior managers of the collapsed bank Professor Wilson Nandwa Hassan and Mary Immaculate did not attend court as directed by Milimani chief magistrate Daniel Ogembo.

Mr Ogembo had on Tuesday ordered all the eight directors and senior officers of DBKL to appear to answer to criminal charges filed against them,

The prosecution applied to have them summoned to attend court on July 19, 2016.

Prof Nandwa and Ms Nyawira are expected to answer charges filed against them on July 19.

Grant lenient bail terms

A defence lawyer, Kirathe Wandugi, urged the court to grant lenient bail terms to the four who volunteered to attend court saying “they are jobless and all their funds have been detained in the bank closed down by CBK.”

Mr Wandugi alleged that the suspects were “financially crippled and or broke since all the accounts have been closed in the bank.”

The prosecution did not oppose the release of Zubeidi, Sheikh, Ali, Munyori and Gatobu who were freed on a cash bail of Sh300,000 or an alternative of Sh1 million bond.

Earlier the magistrate had declined a request by the defence to defer the taking of pleas to enable the parties agree on an out of court settlement.

The magistrate also ordered the five accused persons to appear before the Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFI) to have their finger prints taken “since they had not been formally processed before appearing in court,”

All the five denied that they conspired to defraud Bank of Africa Kenya Limited.

Zubeidi, Sheikh and Nandwa were late last year charged with money laundering after the bank was put under receivership by Central Bank of Kenya. They are out on bond.

There is a pending warrant of arrest issued by Mr Ogembo against the former chief executive officer of the bank Binay Dutta and Operations Manager Deeraj Kumar Baghel who are still at large and have never pleaded to charges.