Goldenberg case proceeds to full trial
PHOTO/FILE
Businessman Kamlesh Pattni (right), former Finance PS Wilfred Koinange (centre) and former Kenya Commercial Bank general manager Elijah arap Bii (left) in a Nairobi court during the mention of the Goldenberg case.
Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko has rejected a plea-bargaining proposal by businessman Kamlesh Pattni over the Goldenberg scandal and ordered the case to proceed to full trial.
In response to a letter by Mr Pattni requesting a plea agreement to settle the matter out of court, Mr Tobiko said it did not meet any specific proposal to warrant his consideration.
He said the request was a mere attempt to show why the businessman should not have been charged.
“The Goldenberg scam extends far beyond the matters relating to the Grand Regency Hotel and its surrender back to the Central Bank cannot be used as ground enough to justify termination of the pending criminal proceedings,” said Mr Tobiko.
Mr Pattni is charged alongside former Finance PS Wilfred Koinange and former Kenya Commercial Bank general manager Elijah arap Bii with conspiring to pay out Sh5.8 billion to Goldenberg International Limited in 1993.
Charges against former Central Bank of Kenya deputy governor Eliphaz Riungu were dropped after he died.
Mr Pattni started negotiating with Mr Tobiko in May last year over the possibility of returning the money lost in the Goldenberg scandal in a move that could have seen criminal charges against him dropped in the event the plea bargaining turned out successful.
He wrote to the DPP claiming he had agreed with the government to return the Sh6 billion Laico Regency Hotel and in exchange have all criminal and civil cases against him dropped.
The businessman said he had kept his part of the bargain and was seeking to have the Sh5.8 billion graft case terminated.
The move was opposed by civil society groups led by the International Center for Policy and Conflict (ICPC), which sought court orders to stop Mr Tobiko from compromising, settling or withdrawing the criminal case against Mr Pattni.
The lobbyists argued that plea bargaining could only be entered where there is a lesser or alternative charge and accused the DPP of abdicating his duties by beginning the negotiations in disregard of the Constitution, which gives him authority to prosecute.
The ICPC claimed the DPP was going against the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg, which recommended that Mr Pattni be prosecuted and Sh5.8 billion recovered from him.
