A women group lobby secretary who had been charged with conspiracy to defraud National Police Service (NPS) of a 70 acre piece of land situated Near Wilson Airport has been acquitted.
Isaac Mburu Njuguna, Wilson Mutumba Women Group secretary was freed by Milimani Law courts Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku on grounds that the prosecution had not proved a case against him and acquitted him under section 210 of the Criminal Procedure code.
”After analyzing all the evidence and lengthy submissions by lawyers, I have found that Njuguna was simply charged because he was an official of the group,” ruled Mutuku.
In the 10 year old court battle, Njuguna and Joseph Gitau were charged with making false documents, uttering a false document and conspiracy to defraud National Police Service of a 70 acre piece of land.
Through his lawyer John Ogada, Njuguna argued that the case was registered in court in 2008 and had therefore taken 10 years passing from one magistrate to another.
Ogada added that the dispute arose between Wilson Mutumba Women Group and the National Police Service after the land which was allocated to them 1987, was subdivided.
It was alleged that the criminal case was brought forth to intimidate them and to force them to abandon the land.
In 2005 the group, through their officials applied to court for a judicial review claiming that the police service had kicked them out of their piece of land which had been allocated to them and for which they had documents for the title.
The police had claimed that the land belonged to them but they had no better allotment, grant or certificate of title.
In 2008, after the hearing of their application, Justice Nyamu issued an order preventing the then commissioner of lands from evicting or interfering with the group’s possession of lands LR No 209/14582.
The group said they were never allowed back to the land even despite the court order.
The court heard that soon thereafter the police arrested two officials of the group and charged them with eleven counts of offense including of false documents, uttering false documents, swearing false affidavit and conspiracy to defraud.
The group added that the lands office issued the police service with another title deed in 2011 about three years after the order of justice Nyamu and while the cases were still pending in court.
They added that the title deed issued to the police was a fake as it was issued while the cases were still pending in court and the lands office never formally cancelled their title.
The case against Joseph Gitau is still ongoing and will be mentioned on 11th June, 2018.
