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Pattni lawyer says Mutava accuser Havi an extortionist

Bernard Kalove testified that his 'learned friend' Nelson Havi attempted and failed to extort his client on several occasions/FRANCIS MBATHA

Bernard Kalove testified that his ‘learned friend’ Nelson Havi attempted and failed to extort his client on several occasions/FRANCIS MBATHA

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 11 – Bernard Kalove who legally represented businessman Kamlesh Pattni in the infamous Goldenberg cases, testified on Tuesday that his ‘learned friend’ Nelson Havi attempted and failed to extort his client on several occasions.

Testifying before the tribunal investigating Judge Joseph Mutava, Kalove said Havi therefore nursed a, “personal vendetta,” against Pattni and the now suspended judge was caught in the middle.

Havi has accused Mutava of ruling in Pattni’s favour under what he said were suspicious circumstances in a judicial review of the Goldenberg cases in 2012.

Kalove produced an affidavit sworn by another learned friend, Titus Odhiambo Adalla, as proof of his claims.

Kalove appeared before the tribunal in response to a summons from Lead Assisting Counsel Nazima Malik.

Malik in examining Kalove on Tuesday, sought to know why he and his client by extension, “insisted,” on having their matter heard by Mutava.

She questioned why Kalove filed the application for judicial review — that eventually led to the quashing of the criminal charges Pattni was facing over the 1990s Goldenberg scam — in July but only sought to have it certified as urgent when a ‘friendly’ judge, in this case Mutava, was available to hear it.

READ: I did not task my ‘brother’ with Bro. Paul Pattni’s case — Judge

She also questioned why Kalove thereafter wrote to the Deputy Registrar to have the case remain before Mutava, a Commercial Division judge, when it should have properly been before a judge serving in the Judicial Review Division.

A request he made, she insinuated, under the guise of seeking a clarification; a clarification Kalove admitted he never sought.

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READ: DPP’s office never objected Mutava presiding over Pattni case

A visibly agitated Kalove defended the manner in which he handled Pattni’s defence posing to Malik: “you want to control how I run my office?”

Kalove who said there was nothing peculiar about seeking to have a matter certified as urgent ten days after first making the application, said he took the decision in response to an application by the prosecution to adjourn the criminal case against Pattni on account of the establishment of Commission of Inquiry into the helicopter crash which killed George Saitoti and to which the prosecuting counsel Mungai Warui had been appointed Assisting Counsel.

“The Chief Magistrate was also promoted to be a judge in a replay of the events of 1997 when Pattni first faced criminal charges over Goldenberg and Bernard Chunga was appointed Chief Justice and the prosecutor DPP. Then we had to had to start all over again. Justice delayed is justice denied and 20 years was a long time to wait for a fair hearing. That’s why we wanted our application for judicial review certified as urgent.”

Malik countered that given Kalove’s own admission that, “nothing turned,” on the July application being heard as a matter of priority, his explanation did not hold water.

Kalove will be cross-examined by Mutava’s lawyer Philip Nyachoti on Wednesday.

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