Four human rights groups on Friday filed a law suit against the Director of Public Prosecutions and two State prosecutors over the bungling of the Kes 63 billion Arror and Kimwarer dams case.
The petitioners accuse the DPP and prosecutors Geoffery Obiri and Oliver Mureithi of bungling the multi-billion case through “reckless dereliction of duty” in the suit filed under the certificate of urgency.
Transparency International is named the lead petitioner in the suit, followed by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) in second place, the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG) in third place, and Katiba Institute in fourth place.
Following last month's exoneration of former Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich and eight co-defendants from fraud-related charges connected to the case by an anti-corruption court, the four organizations are now requesting responsibility from the prosecutors.
The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) is named as an interested party in the lawsuit, with the DPP identified as the first respondent and Obiri and Mureithi as the second and third respondent, respectively.
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The groups point to prosecutorial wrongdoing in the case, contending that Obiri and Mureithi could only present eight witnesses, as previously declared by the court, despite the prosecution having 49 witnesses.
“The counsel failed to call witnesses citing ‘firm instructions not to proceed with the matter.’ The court acquitted the nine accused persons but called for accountability of the prosecution counsel for the prosecutorial misconduct,” reads part of thye petition.
The human rights groups also want the court to lift the prosecutorial counsel's immunity and hold them personally liable if the accused claim damages for malicious prosecution.
The petition similarly seeks to bar the government from using public funds to compensate damages if Rotich and the acquitted co-accused persons win their case for wrongful prosecution.
To teach the two prosecutors a lesson, they also want the court to penalize them for what they refer to as "neglect of prosecutorial duty."
Magistrate Eunice Nyutu cleared the accused in her ruling on December 14, stating that the prosecution had not done a good job of presenting the case and that there was no evidence presented in court to support the claim that the former CS and eight other people had broken procurement laws in the Kes 63B Arror and Kimwarer dams scandal.
The court held the prosecution accountable for calling only 8 of the 49 witnesses it had originally planned to summon.
