In case you were looking forward to the trial hearing of the National Youth Service (NYS) fraud case, you might have to hold your horses a little bit longer.
After the prosecution introduced new evidence and charges against the thirty seven accused persons, the hearing (NYS) fraud case failed was to kick off today but that did not happen.
The State prosecutor, Joseph Irungu told the court that there was new evidence against Former NYS boss, Richard Ndubai and Former Youth Affairs Principal Secretary, Lilian Omollo and others. According to Mr. Irungu, the new charges were guided by witness statements and documents.
While Trial Magistrate Douglas Ogoti allowed the application, he warned the prosecution from adjourning them case again and said that the hearing would resume on Wednesday, 31st October at 9 am.
“For justice to be seen to be done, this courts is adjourned. The prosecution team should avail those documents by 11 am tomorrow at the courts for collection by the counsels,” said Ogoti.
All accused persons take plea in consolidated NYS 2 corruption case. Court allows .@ODPP_KE to include new charges including proceeds of crime & anti money laundering charges not in earlier charge sheet. #AntiCorruption_ODPP#NYS2Prosecution pic.twitter.com/YJgDo6GOws
— ODPP_KE (@ODPP_KE) October 29, 2018
Earlier today, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noordin Haji, withdrew the charges against eight accused persons in the NYS scandal citing lack evidence. According to the prosecution, out of the eight, four will act as State witnesses in the case on the loss of the Ksh. 231 million from the youth agency.
The charges against the other four: Clara Mbau, Christopher Malala, Josephat Njoroge, Rodgers Nzioka, Lucas Otieno, Sammy Michuki, Simon Kiiru, and Stephen Muchai were withdrawn under Section 87A of the Criminal Procedure Code.
According to the Kenyan constitution, “Section 87 – (a) where the accused has not been called to make his defence, he is entitled to be discharged, but the discharge is not a bar to subsequent prosecution,”
This means that if the police find further evidence, they may be charged afresh.
The prosecution further consolidated the four files and the charges of 82 counts were read out to the accused persons afresh to which they pleaded not guilty.
In a former statement, the DPP said that he would prove that huge amounts of money were paid as pending bills even though they did not fit the description of a pending bill as they were slotted into the NYS stock of pending bills.
Do you think that ‘new evidence’ will bring to a close the NYS fraud case?