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State awaits papers to appeal Kirubi acquittal

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Businessman Chris Kirubi. The State has not received court proceedings to lodge a formal appeal challenging a ruling that cleared businessman Chris Kirubi and 13 co-accused on alleged fraud charges.

The State has not received court proceedings to lodge a formal appeal challenging a ruling that cleared businessman Chris Kirubi and 13 co-accused on alleged fraud charges.

A senior state counsel at the Attorney-General’s chambers, Mr Mungai Warui, yesterday said the court registrar was yet to supply the State with the court proceedings, which contain the chief magistrate’s findings to facilitate the appeal.

Mr Kirubi and 13 others were earlier this month set free on a charge of conspiracy to defraud Uchumi Supermarkets by irregularly selling a prime property to some investors for Sh147 million.

But Mr Amos Wako says he was dissatisfied with the acquittal and confirmed he would appeal in the High Court to overturn the city magistrate’s findings. Nairobi chief magistrate Gilbert Mutembei cleared the suspects on all counts in the last pending criminal case relating to Uchumi Supermarkets. The supermarket’s chain collapsed in June 2006 and has taken hundreds of millions of public resources to revive. It returned to the Nairobi Stock Exchange after a five-year absence. 

No case

Acquitting the accused, Mr Mutembei ruled that Mr Kirubi and co-accused had no case to answer on the fraud allegations levelled against them by the State. He also dismissed the assertion that Uchumi was a State corporation and therefore the board members were accountable to the public.

The board members had been accused of selling the retail store’s Aga Khan Walk branch to Allgate Ltd for Sh147 million and leasing back the landmark building to Uchumi in 2004 for a monthly rent of Sh1.7 million.

Mr Kirubi faced a separate charge of breaching public trust as the former Uchumi board chairman by allegedly approving the sale without an independent valuation of the property.

The industrialist was charged in June 2008 together with former Uchumi board members and directors who included managing director Kennedy Thairu, Mr Oyugi, Mr Joseph Munyiri Munene, Mr Isaac Awuondo and Mr Nigel Ralph Pavit and Allgate Ltd.

Considered as one of the high-profiled State litigations, the magistrate absolved all the suspects from accusations of breaching any laid down procedures when they disposed of the asset, saying the evidence by the prosecution fell short of proving any conspiracy to defraud the retail store.

Two other cases of insider trading involving former KCB chief executive Terry Davidson and former Uchumi general manager Bernard Mwangi Kibaru were also dismissed and the accused acquitted.