- Senior principal magistrate Hazel Andere released Echesa on a Sh50,000 cash bail.
- Lady Justice Farah Amin set the hearing date for the application on Thursday.
Image: STANLEY NJENGA
Former Sports CS Rashid Echesa wants the High Court to stop his prosecution over assault and election offence charges.
Echesa was scheduled to take a plea on Tuesday before senior principal magistrate Hazel Andere in a case he is charged with four counts. The counts are obstructing an election officer, creating a disturbance, assault and entering an election centre without authority during the Matungu by-election on March 4.
However, Echesa, through, lawyer James Namatsi, moved to the High Court in Kakamega on Tuesday, where he filed an application under a certificate of urgency before Justice Farah Amin to stop his plea-taking.
Echesa obtained orders stopping his taking of a plea, pending hearing and determination of his application.
The orders were granted and filed before Andere, who released the former Cabinet CS on Sh50,000 bail.
Amin set Thursday as the day for the hearing of the application.
On March 8, Echesa was arraigned in Kiambu and released on Sh1 million bail by chief magistrate Patricia Gichohi.
Echesa wants the court to declare that his intended prosecution over the alleged offences is an abuse of the criminal justice system and a contravention of his constitutional rights and freedom.
He also wants the court to issue a declaration that his arrest and the intended re-arrest is oppressive, malicious and an abuse of the justice process.
The former CS has asked the court to stop his prosecution at Kakamega law courts in respect of the alleged assault and election offence arising out of the Matungu by-election as it is unconstitutional and an abuse of the court process.
He wants the court to issue a conservatory order restraining the respondents, their servants, agents and junior officers from arresting and harassing him pending the hearing and determination of his application.
Echesa said in his petition that he was arrested on March 6 and spent a night at the Kakamega Central police station before he was taken to Nairobi Area police station in the wee hours of March 7 under heavy security.
He said that although a criminal case was filed in a Kiambu court, he was not charged despite the police and the DPP saying they were ready to commence his prosecution.
Echesa has named Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai, Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji and Attorney General Kihara Kariuki as respondents.
He said the prosecution has been going round in circles, taking him from one police station to another and one courtroom to another, "only to punish me".