- In a judgement delivered on April 30 by Milimani principal Magistrate Robinson Ondieki, acquitted Yunus over accusations of abusing his office by harassing junior women officers.
- The magistrate found that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.
Image: FILE
Former Kamukunji OCS Chief Inspector Samir Yunus who was charged in 2022 with raping a policewoman at a station has been freed by a Nairobi court for lack of evidence.
In a judgement delivered on April 30 by Milimani principal Magistrate Robinson Ondieki, acquitted Yunus over accusations of abusing his office by harassing junior women officers.
The magistrate found that the prosecution failed to prove the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.
"The verdict is that the prosecution has failed to prove its case against the accused person beyond reasonable doubt and l acquit him under section 215 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CPC)," Ondieki ruled.
Further, he said there doesn't need to be many circumstances creating doubts when giving an accused person the benefit of the doubt in a criminal case.
The female officer had accused his boss of sodomizing her and biting her on the cheek at his office in Dandora police station.
It was her case that on June 14 2019, Yunus grabbed her in the office, bit her cheek and sexually assaulted her.
She said she subsequently went to St Philips Medical Centre for treatment on June 16, 2019, and later on reported the matter to then Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai about the harassment.
She obtained a PRC form which was filled on July 28, 2020, after reporting the case to DCI headquarters.
She alleged that she had to report the matter to the International Jurist Commission (IJC) and other justice actors including the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Parliament and the International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) because no action was taken.
However, Yunus defended himself by saying that they had a cool relationship and he frequently visited her in her house as often as they wished.
He said they broke up because the junior cop got pregnant but decided to extract it.
Further, she says, she declined to convert to Muslim forcing him to walk away.
While setting the ex-OCS free, the magistrate concurred with Yunus' defence lawyer Kimani Wachira that the evidence extracted from his client and the complainant's mobile phones revealed that there were love chats between the two confirming that they were indeed in a relationship for three years.
"It was the evidence of the investigating officer who said that the two were lovers and the two exchanged love chats even as at the time the case was in court as evidence in the extraction by the forensic experts," Magistrate Ondieki stated.
The court noted that according to the investigating officer's testimony, he reluctantly recommended the charges against the OCS as the complainant was not reliable as she would turn around any time since the two were lovebirds and during investigations, the duo were still in love communication.
"It is the investigating officer's testimony before this court that the break up may have triggered the charges against the accused. She was a jilted lover," Ondieki stated.
The magistrate also noted that there was overwhelming evidence even from the prosecution witness Samuel Guto Oresi an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stationed in State House who testified in court that the OCS and his female junior officer were lovers for three years and during the material date in 2018, they were in a relationship.
The court also stated that Guto who was a close friend to the accused and complainant also confirmed that the duo had ups and downs in their relationship and his bid to intervene as a mediator did not avail any long-lasting solution.
The court acquitted Yunus noting that there was overwhelming evidence to prove that the OCS was fixed by the complainant known as JM since the evidence on record shows that they were lovers and the charges were brought up by a jilted lover.