Nick Mwendwa's case moved to March 29

Embattled Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa will again wait until March 29 to know whether the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji will be allowed to prosecute him over theft of football funds by a Kiambu Court.

This is the fifth time the ruling on the validity of the Sh38million theft case against Mwendwa is being adjourned.

Since the termination of the graft case against Mwendwa on July 6, 2022 twin applications by defence lawyers Eric Mutua, Charles Njenga and Victor Omwebu seeking to quash the fresh Sh38m theft case have been filed arguing it is blatant abuse of Mwendwa’s fundamental and constitutional rights.

Postponing the ruling date, Kiambu senior principal magistrate Wilson Rading said the ruling was not ready.

The scenario over the prosecution of Mwendwa has further been hit by a whirlwind as Rading who is in conduct of the case has been transferred to Naivasha Law Courts.

The transfer will adversely affect the case since it is Rading who is scheduled to decide whether the fresh charges against Mwendwa by the DPP are valid or not.

“The ruling of this case is not ready. I will deliver it on March 29,2023,” Rading told defence lawyer and Kiambu County State Prosecutor Everlyn Onunga.

Mwendwa’s lawyers and Onunga had appeared before Rading on Wednesday to receive the decision.

When the case came on February 22, 2023, Rading said the ruling was not ready.

“The ruling is not ready. The file is yet to be returned from the high court to enable me pen my decision,” Rading told the lawyers and Onunga.

The magistrate directed the parties to return on March 8 when he will rule whether there is a  valid case against Mwendwa or not, but it was not even ready.

Defence lawyers Mutua, Njenga and Omwebu asked the magistrate to quash the fresh case against Mwendwa, saying he had been cleared  by Milimani Anti-Corruption Court chief magistrate Eunice Nyuttu.

On July 6, 2022, Nyuttu dismissed the Sh38 million graft case, but the DPP filed a fresh case before the Kiambu Court arguing he has fresh evidence to sustain the new case.

The DPP through Onunga presented a raft of evidence in support of the fresh case filed against Mwendwa.

In the first charge, Mwendwa is alleged to have stolen Sh2,500,000 on May 15, 2021.

The second charge states that on March 4 ,2021 Mwendwa allegedly stole Sh5 million.

The third indictment is that of allegedly stealing Sh1million on May 6, 2021, while the last count is of conspiring to defraud FKF of Sh29,502,709 jointly with others not before the court.
Onunga told Rading that the decision to charge Mwendwa was “informed by the sufficiency of evidence on record, public interest and not any other consideration.”

Onunga, appearing alongside Terry Kehoro, handed to the court and the defence lawyers 71 documents containing fresh evidence in support of the four charges.

The documentary evidence includes bank transactions from Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), NCBA and NIC Bank including the approved budget for FKF for three years.

“FKF approved budgets for the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 was Sh797,259,232 Sh1,241,991,520 and Sh1,004,565,145 respectively,” the inspection report of the FKF committee appointed by former Sports CS Amina Mohamed shows.

Onunga urged Rading to dismiss in its entirety the application by Mwendwa seeking to block the DPP from prosecuting him saying the case has not met the threshold.

“The stay orders sought by Mwendwa are not tenable as he has not met the threshold for such orders and the application is wrongly before the court,” prosecutor Thelma Nanjaya states in an affidavit in support of the DPP's plea to dismiss the case by Mwendwa to prohibit his trial over the alleged theft.