Three suspects alleged to have murdered city lawyer, Robert Chesang’ early this year have finally been released on a one million shillings bond or a cash bail of Sh.500, 000.
Judge George Odunga also disallowed an application by the deceased lawyer’s family to have the case moved to another court on basis that the court would be prejudiced.
The family in a sworn affidavit, through Nehemiah Chesang, a brother to the deceased who is a prosecution witness said the victims in the matter stood to suffer miscarriage of justice if the orders to transfer the case to another court were not granted.
He claims the key suspect who is Nyeri Senior Principal Magistrate (SPM), Pauline Maisy Omung’ala Chesang is related to the Presiding Judge.
The accused SPM is said to have mastermind the killing of her husband and city based lawyer, Robert Chesang at their Moke Esates apartment in Lukenya, Machakos County on February 17, 2019.
She is accused alongside, Richard Lorunyei Moru, Laurence Lempesi, and Peter Muendo Mbithi of shooting Chesang’ in cold blood at the couple’s matrimonial home.
But while making his ruling on Friday, Judge Odunga dismissed the application to transfer the matter to another court as invalid and baseless since it doesn’t give a satisfactory reason as to why it should be heard outside Machakos.
Odunga tickled the court after he described the first accused as a public figure and known by hundreds of people and advanced that the only ideal place to proceed with the trial will be in a court outside the country.
“This application is merely meant to obstruct case proceedings and therefore cannot be approved before this court. It (application) does not give a satisfactory reason as to why this case should be moved to another court unless more compelling reasons are given to convince this court otherwise,” he said.
But the accused have been slapped with tough bond terms, including surrendering their travel documents like passports before they can secure their temporary release.
They will also be required to report to the nearest Police Station once a month and never to interfere with any of the witnesses in the case.
They will also be required to be attending court sessions every time the matter comes up without fail.
“This application was approved on conditions that upon release the accused has to report to court without fail and that the accused should not contact the witnesses”, said the Judge.
Lawyer Osiemo Odero, representing the SPM, however requested the court to allow her client to collect her documents at her house and asked for time to allow her collect them before handing them over to the court.
The court granted the request but ordered this be done in the presence of Police officers.
The case will come up for mention again on July 10, 2019.
By Samuel Maina/Dominic Mulei
