Noordin Haji, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), has come out to defend himself of responsibility for the withdrawal of court charges against high-profile persons.

During his vetting for the position of Director General of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Haji testified before the National Assembly's Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence, and Foreign Relations that he withdrew over 25,000 other cases, not all of which were against high-profile individuals.

PHOTO | COURTESY DPP Noordin Haji

The DPP emphasized that his office dropped a total of 25,716 cases between 2021 and 2022 to decongest remand prisons following the outbreak of COVID-19 and that the withdrawal of cases should not be interpreted as a political move following the election of President William Ruto in August 2022.

Noordin said that People are attempting to characterize them as withdrawing just high-profile cases. Statistics reveal that in 2017 before he was even DPP, there were 11,188 withdrawals; in 2018/2019, there were 10,600; in 2019/2020, there were 18,750; and in 2021/2022, there were 25,716 cases dropped

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he added that Some of these withdrawals, the reason the figures have risen, were due to the COVID period when they went out to decongest the remand prisons, which were then full of petty offenders.

haji said that The withdrawal issue should not be packaged in such a way that we benefit the high and mighty or for political reasons.

DPP Haji denied being forced into dropping the cases, claiming that his office relied exclusively on the evidence presented by Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) investigators and that the courts also agreed to drop the cases.

PHOTO | COURTESY DPP Noordin Haji

Haji denied being pushed into prosecuting specific persons, instead accusing the DCI of forgeries and a lack of transparency in their investigation.

According to the NIS Director General nomination, the ODPP is not mandated to conduct investigations and must thus depend on the DCI's findings.

President Ruto recently nominated Haji to be the NIS Director General, succeeding current DG Major-General (Rtd) Philip Kameru.

However, civil society organizations have petitioned the Public Service Commission against his appointment, citing serious misbehaviour, incompetence, and noncompliance with Chapter Six of the Constitution.