A Magistrates Court will today issue further directions in former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa Sh39b fake arms deal case.
The case has been listed before Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina.
Echesa was acquitted in December 2021 by then-senior principal magistrate Kenneth Cheruiyot who said the prosecution had failed to prove its case against him.
The prosecution failed to call key witnesses who would have shed light on how the arms deal was clinched.
"In the absence of such testimony against Echesa, I acquit him under Section 215 of the Criminal Procedure Code," he ruled.
However, On February 26, High Court Judge Kanyi Kimondo ordered Echesa and his four co-accused persons to appear in court to defend themselves.
That was after the state lodged a successful appeal.
"My final order is that the original lower court file shall accordingly be remitted back to the lower court for the court to formally place the 1st to 5th respondents on their defence," Justice Kimondo ruled.
But Echesa moved to the court of appeal and obtained an order suspending the matter.
Justices Patrick Kiage, Ali Aroni and Lydia Achode issued the order.
They said the appeal raised some fundamental questions of law that need to be handled by the court.
"We do order that there will be a conservatory order and a stay of the High Court order made on February 26, 2024, that directed that the matter at the trial court do proceed to defence hearing pending the determination of the intended appeal," the appellant court judges directed.
Today, the court will be apprised of how far the matter has reached and which way forward.
Separately, Justice Chacha Mwita is to issue directions in a case in which he ordered IG Douglas Kanja and DCI Mohamed Amin to immediately and unconditionally release Justus Mutumwa, Martin Mwau, Karani Muema and Stephen Kavingo.
In issuing the order, the Judge said it was clear that the four who were arrested on 16 and 17 December had been held beyond the constitutional limit.
"Any continued holding of the four subjects is a violation of the constitution and unmitigable," he said.
In the alternative, Mwita issued an order to the IG and DCI to produce the bodies of the four before the court on January 13 at 10 am.
