A supreme court judge has turned the guns on Senior Counsel Ahmednassir Abdullahi after ‘defamatory’ statements he posted on Twitter after the ruling on Wajir County governor petition.
In the event that the ase proceeds to full hearing, Ahmednassir may be forced to cough millions of shillings in damages if the courts find that he indeed, defamed the judge.
Supreme Court Judge Mohamed Ibrahim has threatened to sue lawyer Ahmednassir Abdullahi for publishing defamatory tweets against him and other judges.
Justice Ibrahim through his lawyer Wambua Kilonzo has demanded an apology from Ahmednassir within seven days or face a lawsuit.
Ahmednassir allegedly tweeted defamatory words against the judge over the Wajir Governor election petition where he alleged that judges of the apex court were bribed to uphold the election of Governor Mohammed Abdi.
Ahmednassir’s client and former Governor Ahmed Abdullahi lost in the petition.
In a majority decision, with Chief Justice David Maraga and Justice Isaac Lenaola dissenting, the judges said the High Court and Court of Appeal wrongly assumed jurisdiction to rule on the Governor’s academic papers.
In one of the tweets, Ahmednassir wrote,” I am proud while hearing all the rumours of judges of the Supreme Court receiving money in sags and hags you are the only, only, only judge who is not mentioned even once for taking money, and many lawyers know that but lawyers are accusing you of not being firm and strong. I think you need to retrace your footsteps. Nobody has suffered for this country in that court as you did, and in my view and please even if you are always alone dissent if that where justice and the law are, don’t follow the majority blindly when we know the majority in that court is brought together by money.”
In another tweet, the outspoken lawyer said, “The problem with corruption in the Kenyan Supreme Court as aptly shown by the judgment of Wajir gubernatorial petition is that corruption is single sources and is not open and competitive. My client was not invited to put his bid and some judges took money from only one party”
“We know from a reliable source in the Supreme Court that the six judges tied at 3.3 until yesterday afternoon when Justice Ibrahim changed his mind to make it 4.2 What happened? Why did he change at the 11th hour? Ibrahim must tell Kenyans what we know @dkmaraga”
Another judge Jackton Ojwang’ also demanded that Ahmednassir publishes the apology both on Twitter and in “two Kenyan newspapers with daily and nationwide circulation.”
But contacted, the Senior Counsel denied knowledge of the letter.
“I have not seen the said letter. If I see it, I will comment,” he told the Star.
Lawyer Wambua Kilonzo, however, supplied to the Star screenshots of the letter bearing the stamp of Abdullahi’s law firm, showing they have received it.