Court gavel/FILEFormer Commissioner of Lands Sammy Mwaita has been charged with five counts of land fraud, abuse of office, and giving false information to authorities.
He's been accused of fraudulently acquiring two parcels of land, each measuring 0.29 acres and valued at Sh150 million in Nairobi West along Langata Road.
The offenses were allegedly committed in 2001.
Mwaita pleaded not guilty to all charges, and Milimani senior principal magistrate Ben Mark Ekhubi granted him a bond of Sh10 million with an alternative bail of Sh2 million.
Mwaita’s co-accused, Kiplangat, failed to appear for plea-taking, prompting Senior Principal Magistrate Ben Mark Ekhubi to issue a summons for his appearance on Tuesday.
The prosecution told the court that Mwaita and his co-accused conspired on or before March 30, 2001, to fraudulently generate title documents for Grant Title Land Reference No. 209/9968 IR No. 85847 without legal authority.
The allegedly forged documents were intended to defraud Rose Njoki King'au of land designated as Plot No. "A".
The prosecution further alleged that Mwaita, while serving in public office, allegedly registered both Plot "A" and an adjacent parcel identified as Plot "B" without the consent or knowledge of their respective owners, Rose Njoki King’au and Micugu Wagatharia, an act that constituted abuse of office.
In addition, Mwaita faced several other counts, including alleged conspiracy to commit a felony, making a document without authority, plus two counts of abuse of office and a further two counts of giving false information to public officers.
The court heard that Mwaita reportedly misled the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers in March 2020, falsely claiming that the disputed parcels belonged to a certain firm.
Mwita was arrested Sunday in the Kilimani area and spent the night in custody ahead of his arraignment.
