A Nairobi court has thrown out several documents that could have been used in the ongoing trial of suspects who allegedly took part in the Anglo Leasing scandal.
Chief Magistrate Felix Kombo reportedly stuck out the document obtained from Switzerland for more than a decade to help with the case. The magistrate noted that he threw out the documents claiming that they were not properly preserved before they were brought to Kenya.
Some of the documents were obtained through requests for Mutual Legal Assistance by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to the United Kingdom and the Swiss Confederation.
“It is my finding that so much of the evidence sought to be admitted herein, which was obtained through an MLA Request by the Republic of Kenya to the Swiss Confederation, fails the test of integrity, and its value may have been degraded from tampering, as a result of an MLA process that was mishandled,” Magistrate Kombo said.
Lawyers presenting the suspects in the scandal – Rashmi and Deepak Kamani – objected to the use of the documents from Switzerland claiming that there were legal flaws in the document’s acquisition, retention, and how they were presented.
The defense team noted that the documents stayed in a private law firm of Dr. Marc Henzelines for three years and shared them with his staff before they were sent to Kenya.
Through their argument, the court noted that it had found that they had “demonstrated that several anomalous things happened during the time the material in the custody of Dr. Marc Henzelin of La Live Attorneys Geneve, and before their transmission to the Republic of Kenya.”
The magistrate noted that issues regarding the documents’ state of preservation and integrity were a major concern.
Though the court denied the use of documents from Switzerland, it allowed the use of documents from the UK noting that they are admissible as secondary evidence according to the law.
Other suspects being charged in the case rather than the Kamanis included former government offices such as Dave Mwangi, Joseph Magari, and Joseph Onyonka.
