A Nairobi court has acquitted a 32-year-old man who was accused in March 2011 of obtaining a Kenyan identity card by false pretence.
Mr Abdihakim Saidi Jama, was charged in 2023 with three counts including obtaining registration by false pretense, giving false information to a public officer to get the ID and being unlawfully present in Kenya.
However, Principal Magistrate Rose Ndombi dismissed the case, stating that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Mr Jama was Somali and had falsely presented himself as Kenyan to obtain his identity card.
The ruling serves as a stark reminder to Kenyan authorities that the burden of proof in ID fraud cases requires more than documentary anomalies.
Photo credit: File | Nation
The magistrate said the registration process is not dependent on a single document or parents’ identity cards only but a collection of supporting evidence including chief’s letters, parents’ death certificates and community vetting minutes.
“The prosecution did not produce the accompanying document to demonstrate that the accused person’s (Mr Jama) application was wholly anchored on false information,” said the magistrate.
The court further dismissed claims by one of the witnesses, Ayni Hussein Mahamu- who testified that she was a relative to Jama and both grew up in Somalia, before she left for the UK and that he even contested a political seat in Mogadishu.
According to the magistrate, there was a possibility that the testimony was driven by vendetta after the two fell out in a business.
While acquitting Ms Jama, the court said the unexplained irregularities in the vetting process, the failure to call critical witnesses, and the fact that he had admitted that he was illiterate and was thus assisted in filling the application forms and the lack of direct evidence of authorship of the false entry in the forms, all create reasonable doubt.
“In the absence of testimony from actual officials who processed the application, the court cannot confidently find that the accused willfully misrepresented himself as the son of Ms Fatuma Mohamed. The prosecution has not proved beyond reasonable doubt that he willfully obtained the ID by false pretense,” said the magistrate.
A Nairobi court acquitted Abdihakim Saidi Jama of charges including obtaining a Kenyan ID by false pretense.
Photo credit: File | Nation
Mr Jama had been accused to have fraudulently procured an identity card, an offence he allegedly committed between March 1 and June 3, 2011 in Isiolo County.
He was alleged to have claimed that he a son to Fatuma Mohamed, a woman who disowned him in court.
He was also accused of giving false information to a public servant, to get the ID and being in Kenya illegally, an offence he is said to have committed between March 2011 and April 25, 2024.
Ms Mahamu testified that she has known Mr Jama since childhood and they both come from the same clan.
She said she employed him 2019 to manage her business in Kenya at a salary of Sh40,000. Following the Covid-19 outbreak, she got stuck in the UK until August 29, 2021 and upon returning to Kenya, she discovered that Mr Jama had shut down the business valued at approximately Sh6 million and that the same had been taken over by his family.
Ms Mahamu also filed a civil suit to recover her money. According to the woman, Jama’s mother was still alive and not dead as he alleged.
She said he even campaigned for a political office of a mayor in Mogadishu and his real name was Mohamed Hussein Noor.
She testified that she was a citizen of Norway and the UK, having migrated to UK when she was 13 years.
The prosecution also called Mr Adinassir Abdisalam Mohamed, the chief of Waburat location in Isiolo who testified that he did not know Jama.
Ms Fatuma Mohamed also testified saying she recorded a statement after Jama used her ID to obtain registration.
She recalled losing her national ID while queuing for relief food at a mosque in Isiolo but said she recovered it the following day.
During the hearing, the police said there was a conspiracy between members of the vetting committee and the accused person to fraudulently procure the ID.
Mr Jama maintained that he was born in Ngaremara village in Isiolo County and relocated to Nairobi in 2010. He said his passed away in 2008 and that he has three brothers and a sister.
Data from the National Registration Bureau, the department charged with issuing ID cards, indicates that of the 915,101 applications for IDs that were made in 2014, over 175,000 were rejected.
He said he relied on someone else to fill the forms since he cannot read or write and the information was thereafter sent to the area chief for verification and that he subsequently appeared before a vetting committee comprising of the district commissioner and local elders.
Although he did not attach his birth certificate in the documents, he relied on his religious card and copies of his parents’ identity cards to get the ID. He confirmed that he was in possession of a driving licence, a passport and Huduma Card.
He maintained that he did not obtain the ID fraudulently but the case was instigated by Ms Mahamu because of a business dispute. He also denied that he vied for a political sat in Somalia.
The magistrate said it is not enough to show that a document contained a false entry, but the prosecution must prove that the accused himself was the author of the falsehood and that he misled the authorities.
“From this conflicting testimony, the court is faced with the reality that the prosecution’s case rests on a documentary anomaly but does not provide cogent evidence linking the anomaly directly to the accused person’s conduct,” said the magistrate.
The court said evidence suggested that there may have been administrative or clerical mishandling of documents during the vetting process, particularly considering that Jama admitted illiteracy and reliance on others to fill the forms.
The magistrate said that the law does not presume that every discrepancy must be attributed to fraudulent intent by the applicant unless such intent is clearly proven.
