A court has acquitted alleged police imposter Joshua Waiganjo of all the charges of impersonation and possession of police uniforms that he had been charged with.
Waiganjo walked to freedom after a Naivasha court ruled that the prosecution failed to prove its case.
Waiganjo faced five charges of impersonating police officers and one for possession of police uniforms.
However, Waiganjo who hit the news headlines eleven years ago for impersonating senior police officers is now a free man.
Waiganjo won the battle after Naivasha Chief Magistrate Nathan Lutta acquitted him of all the charges.
Onetime during the trial, the office of Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) had made an application to withdraw the cases under section 87 (a) of the Penal Code but Waiganjo opposed the application.
Police imposter Joshua Karianjahi Waiganjo. PHOTO | PAUL WAWERU |
Section 87 (a) provides that prosecutors withdraw a case against an accused person and reopen or resume the prosecution later.
Waiganjo had turned down the OPDD application under the section, which amounts to pausing prosecution for a time, and demanded full prosecution so that he could clear himself of the charges and be acquitted.
Lutta noted that the accused had lodged an appeal in the case through the High Court in Naivasha but moved to the Court of Appeal in 2017 after he was dissatisfied by the outcome.
“The Court of Appeal in its ruling directed that the accused person be set free and this court is bound by doctrine of stare decisis (seniority of courts” and the accused is acquitted under section 210 of the CPC,” Lutta stated.
Waiganjo was in 2013 arraigned in a Naivasha court and charged with impersonating senior police officers, robbery with violence and being in possession of police uniforms.
The case however collapsed as some witnesses failed to appear in court while some of the evidence went missing as the case moved from one court to another.
In 2015, he was acquitted of some of the charges but he was jailed for five years for impersonating a police officer, one year for dressing in police uniform and six months each for three charges of being in possession of government wares.
He appealed the ruling in the High Court which ordered for a retrial of the case before moving to the Court of Appeal in 2017 which in turn dismissed the case in totality.
The court of appeal noted that the order of a retrial by the High Court was not proper and lacked legal basis.
“There was no cross appeal filed against these orders by the learned judge and we allow the appellants application and order that he be set at liberty forthwith,” stated the ruling.
