A Nairobi lawyer has lost a bid to have Sh2 billion seized by police from a Barclays Bank safe box returned to him.
The High Court dismissed Erick Adede's application for lack of merit.
Adede had sued the Director of Criminal Investigation, Barclays Bank of Kenya Limited and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He said that he is the owner of the box that was held at Barclays Bank containing a total of $20,067,900 in 100-dollar dominations.
Through lawyer Martin Oloo, Adede told the court that the DCI and the Barclays Bank of Kenya unlawfully broke into the box and seized the money before issuing a press statement.
“They hastily declared that they had in their possession fake currency amounting to Sh2 billion from the box,” Oloo said.
Justice John Mativo said Adede failed to produce enough evidence that the exhibits do not form part of the prosecution evidence.
Mativo said that the cash will be considered to be in custody of the court until the final disposition of the case either by the lower court or where an appeal is preferred by the final appellate court.
He said the evidence seized for the use of exhibits in criminal proceedings is held by the police until it is formally introduced during trial.
“It is an invitation of the court to evaluate the evidence to be presented before the lower court and determine whether the said US dollars are genuine or not, with tremendous respect that is the function of the lower court,” Mativo ruled.
In the judgement delivered Tuesday, Mativo indicated that the lawyer has sued the Director of Public Prosecutions, Inspector General of Police and the chief magistrate’s court in Nairobi.
Adede termed the judgement as faulty, saying he could not understand it.
“I am headed to the Court of Appeal because the judgement did not address my pleadings and instead it has ruled on what the respondents did not even seek,” Adede said.
