The High Court was yesterday scene of drama as former National Bank of Kenya company secretary pushed for prosecution of the lender’s managing director and chairman. Tempers flared as lawyer Leonard Kamweti, who now wants permission to conduct private prosecution, accused the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) of “reluctance” to act against chairman Mohammed Abdirahman Hassan and managing director Munir Sheikh Ahmed and opposed a preliminary objection to his bid. He claimed the DPP and the police have been “indolent” despite his successive complaints raised more than a year ago.
The directors’ lawyers Cecil Miller and George Oraro raised the objection to the proceedings on grounds that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain Mr Kamweti. It took the intervention of the presiding magistrate to put to rest a raging legal argument that took almost 30 minutes. Senior principal magistrate Enock Cherono finally ruled the objection took precedence over the complainant’s case. Mr Kamweti wanted the court to admit the three charges he had drawn against the bank directors claiming they conspired to defeat and obstruct justice, and that they “corruptly abused their offices to confer a benefit on one Abdullahi Maalim” by compelling him while in their employment, to drop a separate complaint he had lodged against Mr Maalim at the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) disciplinary committee.
The complainant wants the directors put on trial for sacking him after “improperly putting him under pres-sure to withdraw the accusations he had filed against Mr Maalim before the LSK disciplinary committee accusing him of obtaining confidential correspondence of the National Bank of Kenya”. His effort to have the bankers summoned to court was thwarted in a bar-rage of counter arguments anchored on grounds that the preliminary objection against the intended prosecution be given priority. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, which the complainant had enjoined in the suit as an interested party, withdrew on grounds that it had no “prosecutorial powers”.
A representative told the court that the DPP was best placed to deal with the case. However, the DPP has also raised a preliminary objection against the private prosecution. Deputy director of public prosecution Victor Mule supported the argument that the objection be heard and settled first. “There is a preliminary objection filed before this court and that means
everything else is put on hold until it is dealt with…everything else must wait, the hearing of the preliminary objection will take precedence before Mr Kamweti is entertained,” the magistrate ruled. Mr Kamweti told the court in five instances the DPP and the police had “obstructed” him and were reluctant to hear him. “They have been seeking to gag me by raising the objection that the private prosecution is frivolous and an abuse of the court process,” he said add-ing that the claim by the two lawyers that he had not taken steps to pursue his case was misleading. ‘In fact the police have told me to remove the term corruption from the charge sheet and scrap the digital evidence I have against the intended ac-cused persons until I get their consent,” Mr Kamweti added. The case was adjourned to September 17.
