Now State says it has watertight case against officer in PEV shooting

The State now says it has a watertight case against a police officer facing a retrial over the killing a protester in Kisumu during the 2007 post-election violence and has asked a court not to grant him bail saying he may tamper with evidence.

“On behalf of the republic, I wish to state that the evidence the State seeks to rely on has high reasonable prospects of conviction in this matter and attracts a death penalty as a sentence,” prosecutor Dorcas Oduol told a trial court Tuesday.

She said that the prosecution was apprehensive about the release of Mr Edward Kirui on bail as he knows the evidence against him and may interfere with witnesses who were his colleagues before he was interdicted.

The police officer escaped the hangman’s noose after the first round of trail saw him acquitted for lack of evidence.

An appeal was lodged immediately thereafter and he has since been charge afresh with the murder of Mr Ismael Chacha on January 16, 2008.

Mr Chacha was among the two people Mr Kirui was allegedly caught on camera shooting to death during the post-election chaos.

Ms Oduol said that after being satisfied that there was sufficient evidence, the DPP sanctioned Mr Kirui’s prosecution.

“The same grounds, the same facts and the same witnesses will be brought up as evidence in the trial and there are high prospects of conviction in this matter,” she said.

The first trial was conducted with Mr Kirui in custody. His lawyer Tuesday asked the court to examine his conduct and assess his credibility from the time he was acquitted.

Mr Kirui was acquitted on June 21, 2012 after the High Court evaluated and assessed the evidence on the first count of the murder of Mr William Onyango who was shot alongside Mr Chacha.

“At the time he had no benefit of enjoying bail terms as it was not provided for by the Constitution,” Mr Charles Koech said.

OBEYING ORDERS

He said Mr Kirui is a serving police officer on interdiction and has been obeying the standing orders that require he makes attendances at Kondele Police Station once every week.

“Being a police officer, he is aware of the consequences of not attending the trial,” the lawyer said.

He said it was an unfortunate case since Justice Fred Ochieng’ had evaluated the evidence against the suspect and freed him yet he was now being subjected to bear the pain of going through a retrial which has caused him and his entire family untold anxiety.

The lawyer dismissed the prosecution’s reasons for seeking a denial of bail saying they were not compelling enough.

He demanded for evidence of averments that the suspect may interfere with the evidence.

“This is an ordinary murder trial and the seriousness of a charge or the severity of the sentence is not a beast in law to deny one bail, “he said.

A ruling will be made on December 2, 2014.