Thuita case halted again over missing documents

The trial of Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Mwangi Thuita over the controversial purchase of the Tokyo Embassy property was for the second time adjourned Tuesday following a document hitch.

The proceedings were called off after it emerged that the prosecution did not have original copies of documents they wanted marked as evidence in the case.

An investigations officer, Mr Kipsang Sambai, was summoned before the trial magistrate and ordered to trace the files at Harambee House and “avail all original copies of the documents the prosecution will be using.”

There was a heated exchange in court after defence lawyers pointed out that the copies the prosecution presented were also “a mis-match” against what they had been supplied with.

The prosecution had presented an offer letter which a witness said had been initially written in Japanese before it was translated.

Mr Wilfred Nderitu said the document presented by the prosecution had handwritten amendments which were not reflected in the translated copy the defence team had been given.

He said he would in the future be interrogating the integrity of the documents supplied by the prosecution.

On Monday, the case was adjourned after the defence demanded an original letter inter-governmental letter purported to have been written from Tokyo to Nairobi concerning the transaction.

(Read: Missing paper halts Sh1.1bn case)

“One would expect that thorough investigations were done in light of the serious charges that face the accused persons,” senior counsel Paul Muite charged. He said the prosecution should take a “serious approach to the case.”

In the case, Mr Thuita is charged alongside the former ambassador to Libya Anthony Muchiri and former charge d’affaires at the Kenyan Embassy in Tokyo Mr Allan Mburu.

On Tuesday, former Ambassador Dennis Awori was stood down for the second time to allow the prosecution to put its house in order.

Prosecutor Daniel Karori sought an adjournment. He said he “needed to taker a definite answer from the investigating officer over the missing original documents.”

The trial magistrate Dorren Mulekyo summoned the investigating officer and ordered him to trace the documents before the proceedings resume.

“We have ended up in the same situation we were in yesterday (Monday)…counsels want to believe that when you gave them the copies you retained the originals, I Want an undertaking that the documents will be available when we resume,” she said.

Defence lawyers Paula Muite, Kioko Kilukumi and Wilfred Nderitu said they wanted the copies produced in court certified as they would be probing the “integrity of the documents.”

The investigating officer said the files could not earlier be traced at the ministry offices but promised to provide them when the sittings resume.

The lawyers agreed that they would take time to look through the documents in comparison.

On Monday, a hitch developed after the prosecution failed to produce an original copy of an offer letter the Japanese government allegedly wrote to Kenya over the sale of the property.