The Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji has amended charges filed 10 years ago against four former employees of Triton Petroleum Company Ltd and Kenya Pipeline.
The case concerns a more than Sh1 billion oil scandal that led to huge losses for the leading commercial bank.
Triton, whose managing director Yagnesh Devani is still in Britain, had secured a Sh1.2 billion loan from KCB and arbitrarily disposed of millions of tonnes of petroleum products without the lender’s consent.
Senior principal magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot allowed the DPP to amend charges brought against three senior employees of Triton namely Julius Kilonzo, Collins Otieno and Mahendra Pathak and former senior KPC staff Benedict Mutua who faces six counts of abuse of office and neglect of official duty.
Ten witnesses out of 26 have so far testified. The eleventh witness, Donald Kapten, testified on Friday and confirmed to court that KPC had earlier withdrawn complaints against Triton.
Kapten confirmed this when he was asked by defence lawyers to read the content of a document which is part of the case. According to the document, KPC lost no money and that it has no complaint against Triton.
The magistrate directed the prosecution to bring the remaining witnesses to testify when the case resumes on July 29, 30 and August 1.
Kilonzo, Otieno, Pathak, Mutua and Triton are charged with stealing 318,656 metric tonnes of jet fuel valued at $365,974.050 (about Sh36.5 million) on diverse dates between April 23 and September 4, 2008, at Kipevu in Mombasa.
The accused jointly with others not before court are alleged to have stolen 2,634,687 metric tonnes of automobile gas delivered via MT Trust Runner valued at $2,844,592 (about Sh284.5 million), the property of KCB.
They also face another charge of stealing 12,782 metric tonnes of automobile gas delivered via MT Overseas Primar valued at $7,999,691.39 (Sh799.9 million), the property of KCB.
They have denied charges of fraudulently disposing of the various oil products without the consent of KCB, which had advanced a loan to Triton to import the oil products then repay after selling them.
