Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama to be probed over hate speech

Police want Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama charged with ethnic contempt, an offence that carries a five-year prison sentence.

However, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko has ordered further investigations by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, before deciding whether the lawmaker should be charged.

Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro had recommended the charge to the DPP after investigating the senator for hate speech.

“As the matter falls under the mandate of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, the DPP has forwarded the inquiry file to the said commission and directed that the suspect be immediately interrogated and speedy investigations conducted into the offensive utterances,” said deputy DPP Nicholas Mutuku in a statement Thursday.

The findings of the NCIC inquiry will then be forwarded to the chief prosecutor.

The offence was allegedly committed in Busia during a homecoming ceremony for county Woman Representative Florence Mutua on Monday.

Senator Muthama has been in legal trouble before over his utterances. Earlier this month he and seven other politicians were arrested and charged with hate speech. They were freed on bond after spending four days in police detention.

In September 2015 he recorded a statement at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations following comments he made about President Uhuru Kenyatta and then Devolution Cabinet secretary Anne Waiguru.

In October the same year, he was charged in a Nairobi court over utterances he had made at an Uhuru Park rally "indicating that it was desirable to bring death and physical injury to persons in Kenya."

(Editing by Beatrice Obwocha and Henry Gekonde)