Lawyer seeks to block arrest over disputed Karen land

A Nairobi lawyer accused of forging a deceased businessman’s will has moved to court, seeking to prevent his arrest for his alleged role in the transfer of a prime five-acre piece of land in Nairobi valued at more than Sh500 million.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has accused Guy Spencer Elms of forging signatures of his deceased client — Roger Bryan Robson — to produce documents showing the land in the upmarket Karen neighbourhood was left to him.

The land is at the centre of a bitter ownership dispute between Mr Elms and city businesswoman Agnes Mugure.

Two forensic experts have since examined the will documents Mr Elms produced, alongside a sale agreement between Ms Mugure and Mr Robson for the disputed property.

Both concluded that the signatures of Mr Robson on Ms Mugure’s sale documents were legitimate while those on the will documents were forged.

The findings led the DCI to recommend Mr Elms’ prosecution but the lawyer obtained a court order freezing the move until a suit he has filed in court is determined.

Mr Elms says in his suit that the CID is bent on having him prosecuted using evidence from incomplete investigations, and that the move is aimed at injuring the reputation of his law firm — Raffman Dhanji Elms & Virdee Advocates.

“The forensic document examiners’ report confirmed that the signatures on the sale agreement, conveyance as well as acknowledgment receipts were the authentic signatures of the deceased. On the other hand, the report did confirm that the purported signatures of the deceased and the power of attorney were forgeries.”

The DCI, however, says in response that the accused has not demonstrated any breach of the Constitution in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ (DPP) attempt to prosecute him.

“Mr Elms has not demonstrated that in making the decision to charge, the Director of Public Prosecutions has abrogated any provision of the Constitution or that the said decision was arrived at in breach of the rules of natural justice,” says Emmanuel Kanyungu, a DCI officer.

Mr Elms insists that the detectives have not obtained any word from Archer & Wilcock — the law firm he was working for in 1997 — on the authenticity of the will documents.

He further says that the detectives have not approached another advocate —Adam Nafsya Abdalla— who witnessed Mr Robson’s will to verify whether the document is legitimate.

The lawyer also argues that Habib Bank, which Mr Robson had charged the land to for a loan, said it was not aware of the disputed property’s transfer to another person.

He insists that the taxman had also blocked any transfer of the land, citing a tax debt Mr Robson was yet to pay.

“It is highly suspicious under what circumstances the alleged conveyance and sale agreement between the deceased and one Agnes Mugure were entered into when the said properties had been charged to Habib Bank and a caveat registered on it by the Kenya Revenue Authority,” Mr Elms says.

Mr Robson died in 2012 and Mr Elms was a year later appointed the executor of his will. The DCI says the lawyer acquired authority to execute Mr Robson’s wishes using a forged document.

Mr Elms has also sued Ms Mugure in a separate suit that is pending before the Environment and Land Court.

Ms Mugure claims she bought the land from Mr Robson in 2011 for Sh100 million.

The DCI claims that Mr Elms planned to transfer the property to himself and that the lawyer had started lining up a buyer to purchase it for Sh70 million at the time investigations started.

Mr Elms in January last year reported Ms Mugure to the police as an intruder who was trying to forcefully take ownership of the land.

Detectives say they have obtained a statement from another lawyer, Michael Osundwa Sakwa, stating that he drew a conveyance between Ms Mugure and Mr Robson on November 18, 2011.

An official at the Lands registry, Peter Mburu, has also recorded a statement confirming that the disputed property was legally transferred from Mr Robson to Ms Mugure.

“The decision to prosecute Mr Elms was made on the basis of the fact that there was sufficient evidence and further that both the evidence test and public interest test had been satisfied,” Mr Kanyungu adds.

Mr Elms insists that the decision to charge him will also interfere with the suit he filed against Ms Mugure in the land courts.