Safaricom accused of withholding data in lawyer’s murder case

A mobile telephone service provider holds crucial information that may help in arresting those behind the murders of lawyer Willie Kimani but is unwilling to share it, a trial court was told on Wednesday.

Lawyers accused Safaricom of suppressing potential evidence and now wants the firm to be directly compelled “to change its stance from a passive spectator to an active player in assisting with the investigations.”

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK), through its representatives in the proceedings at the High Court on Wednesday, said call and message data in Safaricom’s custody “should show the planning and execution” of the triple murder that shocked the nation.

Administration Police officers based at Syokimau Chief’s Camp in Machakos County allegedly abducted the late Kimani, his client Josphat Mwenda and taxi driver Joseph Muiruri on June 23.

The three were later tortured and killed before their bodies were stashed in gunny bags and dumped in Ol Donyo Sabuk River.

“There must have been some flow of information and the respondent holds this evidence,” said LSK Nairobi branch chair Charles Kanjama.

Mr Kanjama and Kirimi Guantai, also representing LSK, told Justice Luka Kimaru that the company had “deliberately omitted” data transcripts in a schedule they had requested for certain subscribers between May and June.

“We notice that some information was not supplied including content that was very important to these proceedings, which renders it incapable of analysis” Mr Guantai submitted.

The LSK had requested Safaricom to provide details of specific SIM card numbers, specifically the names of the subscribers, but the lawyers said a printout given did not include the names of owners as they had required.

“We had also requested for message logs of the numbers provided in the schedule, but they are telling us that they do not keep a store of message logs,” the lawyer said.

The lawyers said they were reading mischief in Safaricom’s response to their request “as the law provides that message logs be stored for a period of 5 years.”

Initially, the telecommunications firm had requested Justice Kimaru to delink it from the proceedings but the judge declined stating that it had a role to play in the ongoing investigations.

The firm, through its lawyer Stephen Kiptinness, invoked sections of the law which shields it from divulging information to third parties and expects the court not to order it to provide the contentious information.

On Wednesday, Mr Kiptinness told the court that divulging SMS content is forbidden by the law and consumer protection regulations such that the company risks losing its licence if it breaches the provision.

He said the law also forbids Safaricom to conduct call surveillance and to look at the content of SMSs.

The lawyers said that the company had given them printouts showing where certain calls originated from, but the same documents have no details showing where the calls went.

“The same document shows that messages went out from certain cell phones but the end point is not shown,” said Mr Kanjama.

The said LSK had requested for data of the phones in question up to July 1, but Safaricom only provided a list up to June 26.

In addition, the lawyers also wanted the telco firm to assist in locating the cell phones owners who were in close proximity with the vehicle the murder victims used on July 23 between 8.00am and 4.00pm.

“The data is in bits and pieces and not in conformity to our request, the respondent needs to be compelled to comply fully,” said Mr Kanjama.

LSK lawyers accused Safaricom of taking an evasive approach by only fishing information from a principal data base without making any analysis or using necessary data tools to generate information useful to the probe.

“They did not co-relate telephone numbers from those receiving text messages and calls from the people in question including their names and identification numbers,” Mr Kajama said.

The lawyer said that they had realised from previous investigations that “there has been a failure to employ all forensic tools to build a strong case to tie suspects to a crime especially where telephone service providers were concerned.”

“Telecommunication providers adopt a more than a mere passive approach to the supply of information,” the lawyer submitted.

Proceedings resume on Tuesday next week.

(Editing by Joel Muinde)