Were DPP Noordin Haji and DCI George Kinoti right in calling for the media to be gagged in coverage of the graft at KPLC?
The Anti Corruption Court has declined to gag the media from covering the KPLC case where former MD Ben Chumo is charged alongside other officials for allegedly looting Sh 409 million in faulty transformers tender.
This is after the DPP and DCI raised concern of how the media had painted them in the case as having ‘bungled’ the investigations.
Through assistant DPP Alexander Muteti, the two bosses had asked the court to reprimand the media for being malicious in the story covered yesterday.
However, in his ruling Senior Principal Magistrate Felix Kombo ruled that everything that was written in the said newspaper was factual because that’s what their witness said.
On Tuesday, the star witness Linus Murithi had a hard time defending the damning report that will be used to convict the top bosses.
However, he said that he was not given all the documents by the DCI that he needed to compile a comprehensive report.
The court also heard that the DCI wrote to PPRA to investigate the tender days after the senior KPLC officials had already been charged and the defense argues that it was fishing for evidence.
The DCI is investigating the disappearance of the Energy Regulation Commission report on the substandard transformers and some of the managers are suspected to be behind it.
The report is the basic evidence in the case where Chumo, his successor Stephen Tarus, Meso and Ombui, and seven others are charged with abuse of office and failure to comply with procurement regulations.