Their arrest on December 8, 2009, was dramatic. Flying Squad, armed in combat riot gear, arrived at businessman Muneer Ishmael’s Narok home in police helicopters, cars and trucks, and and swooped in on their home and adjacent business premises.
The swoop roused the sleepy Narok town and brought business to a standstill as villagers gathered at the couple’s home to try and catch a glimpse of the cache and witness the search.
Shockingly, the recovered items included approximately 100,000 rounds of ammunition of different caliber then believed to have been manufactured by the Kenya Army bullet factory in Eldoret and the Ministry of Defence (British Army). Pistols and four rifles, including a sniper rifle, were also seized. Also among the cache were machetes, military backpacks, shooting range ear plugs, military sleeping bags, foldable camping beds, solar batteries, heavy duty vehicle batteries, 70 water containers, tyres, solar camp showers, boots and knives.
Then Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said the consignment was the largest cache of arms seized from a civilian in Kenya’s history.
The arms cache was airlifted by two Kenya Airforce helicopters and a police chopper to the CID Headquarters on Kiambu Road in Nairobi where Iteere had invited the
and allowed to film before they were transferred to GSU Training School under heavy security.
The operation was conducted by the Special Crime Prevention Unit led by Assistant Commissioner of Police Richard Katola.
Iteere, who led the opening of the consignment and the counting of the arms at the CID headquarters said some of the ammunition came from the Czech Republic while others were indicated as originating from the Eldoret arms factory.
Muneer and his wife Nahid Tabasum were flown to Nairobi under heavy police escort where they and three others were charged with being in illegal possession of different caliber of government weapons and ammunition.
The shocking seizure was so large that the National Security Intelligence Service was called in to assist in investigations.
Muneer and his wife were then charged together with AP Chief Armourer Joseph Maritim with being in illegal possession of 68,689 different caliber of ammunition in Narok town. The couple faced three additional counts of storing stolen military attire and dozens of assorted military ware in Nairobi and Narok.
Two other people, John Wandeto and Dominic Mufumu were separately charged with storing military gear.
But seven years later, the case is still pending in court.
When it first came to court, the high profile case was handled by senior prosecutor Onesmus Toweet but was later assigned to senior state counsel Vincent Wahoro. The two have since left Milimani Law Courts.
The accused spent 17 days in police cells and prison remand before then Nairobi Chief Magistrate Gilbert Mutembei released them on Sh1 million cash bail each.
Days after their release, the High Court suspended their cash bail and ordered they be re-arrested and detained.
They appealed against the decision and the then High Court Judge Mohammed Warsame enhanced Muneer’s cash bail saying “he appears to be the central player in this case “.
The judge said beside the Sh1 million cash bail ordered by the court, Muneer was to furnish the court with two sureties of Sh 3 million each. His wife was released on Sh1 million bail while Maritim was ordered to pay Sh500,000. Wandeto and Ambisai paid Sh200,000
Muneer remained in custody for a while after a further 30,528 arms cache was seized slightly a month later at Embakasi. He was later released as well.
The is after the prosecution has on several occassions made various applications seeking to keep the suspects in remand saying they were a threat to national security. But the application was dismissed by Mohammed Warsame, then a judge of the High Court saying mere suspicion, however strong, must be backed by cogent evidence.
“I therefore find neither a single fact nor a reason which can explain why the State should insist of the detention of the respondents on flimsy and flippant contention of endangering national security. It is my decision that there is a serious problem with the claim that one is justified in undermining civil liberties to prevent the release of an individual simply because they were allegedly found with weapons likely to compromise our national security.
“As stated the existence of fear and anxiety because the respondents were found with the weapons mentioned in the charge sheet, cannot be a yardstick to measure the degree of the danger they pose to the national security,” the Judge ruled.
Despite the State Law Office taking up the matter in 2009, nothing much has happened in the trial following numerous applications both before the Magistrate Court and at the High Court.
The case has dragged on with one application after another being filed. More baffling is the allegation that the court file cannot be traced.
In one of the applications, Muneer Ishmael told the court that he feels he is not going to get a fair trial because the police violated his rights when they ransacked his premises.
The businessman said police should have had a search warrant as required by law. He also accused the courts of “pre judging” him even before he has been tried.
A top official in the office of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions
demanded an explanation last week from the criminal court registry and threatened unspecified action after it emerged that details of the file and its movements cannot be traced.
“I have been following up on this matter for some time now. I have heard that the file has been closed. In fact, I have even asked the registry to explain and bring the file to my office but am yet to get feedback,” the senior officer told the Star on Wednesday.
Yesterday, four days later, the file was miraculously placed for hearing before Chief Magistrate Daniel Ogembo but did not go on because the police file and the investigating officer were not present.
The case could also not proceed because the couple’s lawyer retired High Court Judge Justice Johnstone Mitei, was also not in prompting the magistrate to push the hearing to November 9.
“There is no order of stay at the Court of Appeal, so the issue that the case is pending at the court does not arise.
Can I advise you with your permission? Tell your lawyers that this case will go on as scheduled without fail” Ogembo told the businessman (Muneer).
In the meantime, the exact truth behind the historic discovery of the huge cache that shocked the country in 2009 remains unresolved.
