High Court thwarts gun case against Jimi Wanjigi

Blow after court's final ruling on Wanjigi's gun case

Mumbi Mutuko

April 2, 2019 12:54 PM

Court's final ruling on Wanjigi's case delivers a blow

Businessman Jimi Wanjigi

The High Court on Tuesday quashed gun charges and sermons against businessman Jimi Wanjigi.

Wanjigi will not answer to charges relating to seven firearms which had allegedly been retrieved from his house in Muthaiga.

According to the High Court sitting in Nyeri, the case pressed against Wanjigi was done out of sinister motives.

Businessman Jimi Wanjigi Pulse Live Kenya

Abuse of office

Justice Pauline Nyamweya ruled that the Inspector General of Police and Director of Public Prosecution had abused their office by preferring charges against Wanjigi away from where the crime had been allegedly committed.

However, the DPP and IG explained to the court that they opted to charge Wanjigi in Nyeri as it was his rural home.

Wanjigi argued that he had not been in his village in Nyeri for over a year and it would beat logic to leave courts in Nairobi and its surrounding for the remote court.

DPP and IG’s actions were illegal

The judge noted that the DPP and IG’s actions were not only abetting illegality but were unfair to him as it entailed additional expenses and inconveniences.

“I find that as the first and second respondents (DPP and IG) have been found to have acted in abuse of the court process and in bad faith, and were motivated by extraneous factors in the decisions made to charge and summon the applicant," the ruling read in part.

Senator James Orengo, with Businessman Jimi Wanjigi and politician Johnstone Muthama Pulse Live Kenya

She also noted that Wanjigi was arrested and charged despite obtaining orders from the High Court barring the State from taking any action against him.

“The procedure therefore employed by the first respondent (IG) to serve the applicant with the said summons was not only unwarranted, and the use of excessive force during the process as also an abuse of the due process and of their powers,” Justice Nyamweya ruled.

Mumbi Mutuko