Economy

Five stop trial over sale of Sh2.3 billion Miwani Sugar land

miwani

Miwani Sugar plant. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Five people among them an advocate and an investor implicated in the illegal sale of a parcel of land worth Sh2.3 billion belonging to Miwani Sugar Company have stopped their trial, pending an appeal they have filed.

Lawyer Ian Maina, Sukhwinder Singh Chatthe, Epainto Apondo Okoyo and Philips Kabita, convinced Court of Appeal judge Asike Makhandia that their appeal is arguable, since the High Court had directed them to appear before the same magistrate who found they had no case to answer.

The magistrate acquitted six people last year, ruling that they had no case to answer over the illegal sale of the Miwani land.

However, after the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed against the decision in October last year, Justice Mumbi Ngugi ruled that they should be placed on their defence.

On November 1, 2019 they appeared before the trial court for directions on the matter. In their appeal, they argued that it was wrong to ask them to appear before the same magistrate who acquitted them for lack of evidence.

“The intended appeal would raise serious issues of law as to whether the same magistrate can proceed to hear the applicants on their defence when he had already ruled that they had no case to answer,” they submitted before Justice Makhandia.

In the ruling, Justice Makhandia said: “As it is and it would not be farfetched to assume that the High Court seems to have directed the trial court on how to proceed with the case, which may be a violation of fair trial provisions.”

The DPP’s appeal argued that the court erred in finding that the prosecution had failed to prove ownership of the property when it had adduced sufficient evidence to establish that it was a public property.

The 9,394 acres were sold in December, 2007 for Sh752 million.

The accused persons argued the property had never been public property and the court should have established whether Miwani Sugar Company (in receivership) owned the parcel so as to make it public asset.