•Advocate from the ODPP faulted for publishing an article on his Facebook page assuming Sarah’s guilt
Image: ENOS TECHE
Sarah Wairimu, the widow of slain businessman Tob Cohen, has filed an application in court seeking to have the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions cited for contempt.
Wairimu, through lawyer Philip Murgor, on Tuesday said the two agencies disobeyed an order issued on September 16 by Justice Jessie Lessit in which she directed that they desist from addressing the media on the investigations and evidence alleged to exist in the murder case.
Wairimu also wants DCI boss George Kinoti, an advocate from the ODPP’s office Juma Owiti and journalist John Kamau detained for a term not exceeding six months.
She said on September 18, in total disregard of Lessit’s order, the DCI in a series of tweets on its official and accredited handle, purported to give an unsolicited and uninformed opinion which assumes her guilt. The DCI and Kinoti, she says, were also quoted in a Dutch paper on September 18 discussing the case.
"Kinoti in particular disregarded of the court order inferred the guilt of Sarah when he talked about the case in a different local paper."
On the other hand, Owiti, an advocate from the ODPP, has been faulted for publishing an article on his Facebook page "disguised" as an academic post while assuming Sarah’s guilt.
Sarah believes in order for sanctity to be restored in the proceedings and court orders to be obeyed, it is imperative that Kinoti, Owiti and Kamau are imprisoned for a term not exceeding six months for contempt of court.
She says Kamau in particular has published "sensational, false and prejudicial" articles on the ongoing investigations, quoting police investigators despite the court order of September 16.
She says that the "sustained media campaign against her is part and parcel of a large elaborate scheme by Kinoti, who has custody of her matrimonial property, to unlawfully appropriate her matrimonial home and hand it over on a silver platter to interested parties, including the siblings of the deceased".
“Whereas the freedom to expression is guaranteed in our Constitution, the same should not be exercised in a manner that violates my right to be presumed innocent,” she said.
On October 3, Sarah was charged with the murder of Cohen, 37 days after being in custody. She denied the charges and was recently released on Sh2 million bail.