Migori Governor Okoth Obado is now pleading with the prosecution to reduce the number of charges labelled against him in the 73 Million Fraud case.
In a new application, Governor Obado says the charge sheet registered in August is overloaded.
Obado was on August 27 charged with 22 counts of contravening various sections of the Anti-corruption and Economic Crimes Act. The charges range from conspiracy to commit an economic crime, unlawful acquisition of public property to money laundering, among others.
He was charged alongside his four children — Susan Scarlet, Jerry Zachary, Evelyn Adhiambo and Dan Achola Okoth — and others, including businessman Jared Kwaga.
Obado says the number of counts he faces makes it a near impossibility that his trial will begin and not conclude within reasonable time as required by the Constitution.
He cites a decision of the Court of Appeal, where the court said for there to be a fair trial, an accused person should not be presented with more than 12 charges.
“The available case law recommends a charge sheet to contain no more than 12 counts. That’s why he says the charge sheet is overloaded,” lawyer Kioko Kilukumi said.
But the DPP in an affidavit has asked the court to dismiss Obado’s application.
The prosecution says before charging him, it evaluated and considered the evidence available and decided that all the charges are supported by available evidence.
“The charges preferred against Obado arise from facts which are part of a series of similar transactions and that should be tried together in one trial,” reads the affidavit.
Prosecution counsel Henry Kinyanjui says there is no known guideline or regulation that stipulates that they cannot prefer more than 12 counts against an accused person.
“The Court of Appeal, when it expressed a desire that an accused person ought not to be charged with more than 12 counts, did not mean that it is illegal to prefer more than 12 counts against an accused person. And in any event, it is undesirable to try separately offences arising from one transaction or related transactions as in this case,” court documents say.
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The prosecution says the court cannot dictate to the DPP on who to charge and when to charge and the number of counts to be preferred.
“An accused, accused of committing crime, cannot be said to dictate how he and when he will be prosecuted. This would amount to the accused directing through the back door how, when and on what counts he should be prosecuted. This ought to be rejected”.
The DPP says in the event the court insists on the number of counts to be less than 12, it should consider how having Obado prosecuted in more than one trial will delay the determination of the case.
The court will issue a ruling date on November 23
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