Two shareholders face forgery charges over Tatu City papers

Minority shareholders of the multi-billion shilling Tatu City Limited will face fraud charges after the High Court declined to stop the criminal proceedings in the magistrate’s court.

Steve Mwagiru, his mother Rosemary Wanja and a lawyer, Robert Githui, had petitioned the superior court to block the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General from prosecuting them.

But the two got a reprieve after Mr Justice Fred Ochieng issued a temporarily stay of 14 days to enable them lodge an appeal.

Lawyer Mr Gibson Kamau Kuria pleaded with the judge to put on hold the criminal proceedings in the lower court saying his clients intended to challenge his findings in the Court of Appeal.

The Mwagirus are also involved in a multiple court cases one of which is seeking to dissolve Tatu City, the company that owns the project.

The three were charged last December accused of forging documents indicating they were the only bona fide directors of Tatu City.

According to the charge sheet, they forged a document purporting it to be genuine and issued by an assistant registrar of companies and using forged title deeds to discredit the shares of fellow majority directors.

They were also accused of instructing the Registrar of Titles to remove the caveats in the vast coffee farm.

Charged alongside the two directors was an advocate Mr Githui who was acting for them in the civil cases.

The three are out on a cash bail of Sh300,000.

Mr Mwagiru and Ms Wanja are pursuing a winding up case on the grounds that the majority shareholders led by Moscow-based investment bank Renaissance Capital have blocked them from the running the affairs of the real estate firm.

“I find no reason, even at their own request, to delay or to halt the criminal proceedings,” ruled Mr Justice Ochieng adding that the concurrent existence of the criminal trial and civil proceedings would not prevent the Mwagirus from prosecuting civil cases.

“A suspect should find comfort in the fact that unlike in civil proceedings where the standard of proof is on a balance of probabilities, in the criminal case, the prosecution would have to tender proof beyond any reasonable doubt,” observed the judge.

The two had argued that the criminal charges against them constituted the execution of the threat issued by former Central Bank Governor Nahashon Nyaga that Ms Wanja’s attempt to demand her rights “would lead to harm being visited upon her and the siblings by the Russian Mafia”.

But dismissing the alleged threats, the judge said the criminal charges were before a court of law and not some shadowy criminal gang.

“If the courts were either “the Russian Mafia” or a tool thereof, it would defy all logic that the petitioners should have chosen the same avenue to seek legal redress,” observed Mr Justice Ochieng.

The judge further ruled that the Mwagirus had not demonstrated that the criminal charges constituted against them was an abuse of the court process.

“There is nothing before me to show that either the AG or the DPP has simply pandered to the wishes of the complainants in the criminal case,” argued the judge.