NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 2 — The Appellate court has suspended a 4-month-jail term handed to DCI director George Kinoti in the businessman Jimi Wanjigi gun case ruling that he has an arguable case.
Kinoti had been handed the sentence in November 2021 after he was found guilty of contempt of court for failing to hand back firearms seized by police from Wanjigi.
The High Court had ruled that Kinoti be jailed at Kamiti Maximum Prison.
However, the DCI boss moved to the Court of Appeal urging the court to grant the conservatory orders pending appeal saying that if the orders will not be granted then his appeal will be rendered nugatory.
“We have indeed looked at the annexed Draft Memorandum of Appeal and, from a cursory perusal of the same, we are satisfied that the applicant has demonstrated to the satisfaction of this Court that he has an arguable appeal worthy of consideration. As we had alluded to earlier, an arguable appeal is not one that must necessarily succeed,” read a ruling from Judges Fatuma Sichale, Mbogholi Msagha and Imaana Laibuta.
The three-judge bench further argued that the contention by Wanjigi and his wife Ireen Nzisa over the November 18 ruling as erroneous.
“In our respectful view therefore, the contention by the 1st and 2nd respondents that the orders issued on 29th November 2021, by Mrima, J. are in the nature of a negative orders is wholly erroneous,” the bench said.
They added, “Consequently, we are satisfied that the applicant has satisfied this Court on this limb.”
On the nugatory aspect, the Appellate judges argued that that the applicant has already been sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment for contempt of Court.
“The 1 st and 2nd respondents have indeed admitted that there is an active warrant of arrest in force against the applicant. Certainly, if the applicant is subsequently arrested and proceeds to serve the sentence, he will have lost his right to liberty and in the event of the appeal succeeding, the prison sentence cannot be reversed and the substratum of the appeal will have been lost thus rendering the intended appeal nugatory,” the judges said.
