The state has lined up more than 40 witnesses to testify against suspended Kenya Bureau of Standards MD Bernard Njiraini and seven others charged with theft and illegal sale of condemned sugar worth Sh20 million.
Defence lawyers on Wednesday told trial magistrate Lucas Onyina they had received the statements of the witnesses and prayed that an order be made so they can be supplied with all the documents the prosecution intends to rely on during trial.
That claim was confirmed by prosecuting counsel Anderson Gikunda who said he was yet to go through all the witness statements. He said the defence team will be supplied with all the documents they require.
Njiraini was last month suspended and charged with stealing 20,000 bags of condemned sugar.
He was also charged with conspiracy to commit felony, abuse of office and interference with goods subject to customs control, among other counts.
He was charged alongside Kenya Revenue Authority deputy commissioner Joseph Kaguru, KRA staffer Derrick Kago, Peter Njoroge Mwangi and Crispus Waithaka Macharia who is a shipping agent at the Port of Mombasa.
Businessmen Mohammed Hassan Ali, Abdi Hirsi Yusuf and Pollyanne Njeri Kamau are the other three accused persons in the case.
They have all denied the counts and are out on Sh400,000 bail each.
The charge sheet stated that the brown sugar had been condemned and was intended to be used as raw material for the distillation of industrial ethanol.
On Wednesday, the case was to be consolidated with another but the prosecution opted to have it heard on its own.
The parties fixed a three-day hearing from September 11. The magistrate directed that the matter be mentioned on July 7 for compliance ahead of the hearing.
"As such, the accused persons are at liberty to be physically present in court or appear virtually except during hearings when they have to be physically present," Onyina ruled.
In the abused of office charge, Njiraini is accused of arbitrarily recommending the conversion of condemned brown sugar into industrial ethanol through the process of distillation.
