The murder trial of former Migori governor Okoth Obado failed to proceed as planned on Monday.
The court was forced to postpone the trial to Tuesday after the prosecution failed to provide the defense with documents necessary for the trial.
The documents include call records of up to 500 pages from Safaricom.
Defense lawyers, led by Kioko Kilukumi, Roger’s Sagana and Elisha Ongoya informed the court that they had only received records of 50 pages only.
“The cumulative size of that data supply is 50 pages. If the data we are now expecting is more than 500 pages, then it is completely new information. That falls within the parameter of trial by ambush,” Ongoya said.
The records include those of protected witnesses, Obado’s (26 pages), his co-accused Michael Oyamo’s (10 pages), Caspal Obiero’s (15 pages) and Kate Sharon Otieno’s data (5 pages).
The defence urged the judge to compel the prosecution to provide complete data records by 2pm on Monday so that they can adequately prepare for Tuesday’s trial.
Judge Cecilia Githua agreed to adjourn the case but faulted the prosecution for failing to handle the matter as required.
“I hope going forward you will be more diligent, it’s not fair that we allocate a date for a hearing only for the matter to be adjourned,” she said.
Obado and his assistants Obiero and Oyamo are facing trial for the murder of the late Sharon Otieno and her unborn baby that Occurred in September 2018.
Otieno is believed to have been murdered on the night of September 3, and her body dumped at a forest in Homabay County.
Her body was found with stab wounds and an autopsy report indicated that she was sexually assaulted before being killed.
At the time of her death, the 26-year old was 7-month pregnant and was pursuing a course at Rongo university.
