• Officials said hearing the cases via video link was aimed at decongesting the Malindi GK prison and ensuring cases are heard fast using modern technology.
• Malindi chief magistrate Julie Oseko with the court clerk, prosecutors and other court officers used laptops and a smart screen linked with another one in prison to hear the cases.
A court in Malindi has started hearing cases via video link in adherence to measures announced by the government to curb the spread of coronavirus.
Officials said hearing the cases via video link was aimed at decongesting the Malindi GK prison and ensuring cases are heard fast using modern technology.
Malindi chief magistrate Julie Oseko with the court clerk, prosecutors and other court officers used laptops and a smart screen linked with another one in prison to hear the cases.
Present in the video conferencing hall was prosecution counsel Babra Zombo, her counterpart Njoki Keng’aara and the probation officer.
The hall was set at the Malindi Law Court. The suspects together with a court clerk held another sitting at the Malindi GK Prison, some 10km away.
The magistrate fixed hearing dates, convicted petty offenders and reduced bail terms for some of the suspects to enable them to go home in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking to journalists after the session, Oseko said they had managed to handle over 50 files and were targeting to complete mentioning all the 130 files.
She said their plan was to decongest the prison using the ICT video link provided by the Judiciary in the wake of coronavirus pandemic as the court had suspended normal operations for 30 days.
''This week, we had a meeting with other cour users including the prisons and other stakeholders and agreed on a better way of managing the coronavirus,'' she said.
Oseko said whenever new arrests are made, they are taken to police who conduct screening and write a report of the suspects before the suspect is taken to remand.
In the remand, she said all new accused persons are quarantined and then tested by health officials before their cases are heard via video link.
She said the prison was indeed congested but through the technology, the court was able to release petty offenders.
She said technology was the way to go as it was easy to operate and cost-effective as opposed to travelling to the prison or the required area.
Before the pandemic, she said they have heard other cases via the video link between Kenya and Italy. It was a divorce case.
The suspects released included those with cases of being drunk and disorderly, petty theft and others who had been in remand for months. Some were given probation sentences.
Edited by peter obuya