Justice Ombija said Kosgey (pictured) should not be charged before any magistrate over the alleged importation of motor vehicles
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 28 – Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey is likely to return to the Cabinet after the High Court on Thursday cleared him of criminal charges relating to a car imports scandal.
Justice Nicholas Ombija terminated the charges against Kosgey ruling that the case was an error in law, and instigated by bad blood between him and the then industrialisation Permanent Secretary Karanja Kibicho.
“I have also prohibited any magistrate in Kenya from hearing the abuse of office case against Kosgey as he could not have committed any offence because the legal notices said to have breached were not adopted by the National Standards Council until April 2011,” Justice Ombija ruled.
The former Industrialisation Minister was charged in January 2011.
“To charge him will amount to breaching his constitutional rights since the two legal notices had not been adopted by Parliament as law,” he said.
Kosgey wrote to President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on January 4, 2011 offering to “step aside,” to clear his name.
At the time when he opted out of the Cabinet, Kosgey was also facing possible charges at the International Criminal Court for his suspected role in the deadly electoral dispute that saw more than 1,300 people killed after the 2007 presidential poll.
The charges were dropped in January this year by the Hague-based court.
Kosgey’s name has been fronted as the likely replacement to Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi as the Orange Democratic Movement’s (ODM) Deputy Party Leader after the latter decamped to a new political outfit earlier this year.
He has also been recently campaigning to be Raila Odinga’s running mate in the next General Election.
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