After eight months in and out of court corridors, former Commissioner of Lands Wilson Gachanja and two senior officials were on Tuesday acquitted over grabbing a beach plot in Kwale for lack of evidence.
Gachanja and his co-accused, former Ministry of Lands physical planner Jabu Salim Mohamed and former Coast region Lands commissioner Zablon Mabeya, were arrested by the EACC for allegedly aiding in the illegal acquisition of public land by private developers.
The court was told that the three accused persons, on June 23, 1994, and August 10, 1994, when they were employed in the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning assisted in grabbing a public access road.
The parcel of land is a road described as Kwale/Diani Beach Block 1072 valued at Sh30 million.
Court papers said the investigations that ultimately led to the charging of the three accused persons were triggered by a report to the EACC Mombasa office on August 23, 2018.
In the report, it was testified by witnesses that there had been public land grabbing of a public road and which was between Beach Plot 627 and 628 – Barclays Bank Beach access road, by Gallerius Investments Limited in Kwale County.
Mabeya, who was represented by lawyer Philip Nyachoti in the case, was accused of preparing a letter of allotment in favour of Boy Juma Boy (deceased) over a beach access road.
Juma Boy was the first person to be allotted the parcel of land.
Mohammed allegedly qprepared a false development plan and Gachanja was accused of preparing a Certificate of Lease in favour of Gallerius Investments Limited.
The trio was arrested last year by EACC sleuths in Nairobi and were transferred to Mombasa, whereby they were charged with nine counts.
The trial started on July 4, 2022, and the court decided to cluster the nine charges into three offences, namely; abuse of office, willful neglect of official duty and aiding the commission of a felony.
The prosecution called a10 witnesses.
On Tuesday afternoon, a Mombasa chief magistrate Martha Mutuku dismissed all the nine charges against three, saying the prosecution failed to prove the charges.
“Upon the close of the prosecution, the court was called upon to determine if the prosecution has established a prima facie case to warrant the accused persons to be placed on their defence,” said Mutuku.
“Looking at the evidence, the prosecution failed to prove the ffence in count 1 to count 9 against the accused persons and each of the three is acquitted under Section 210 for lack of evidence.”
Mutuku said the prosecution failed to demonstrate collusion between Juma Boy and the accused persons in the transfer of the property to Gallerius Investments Limited.
Tthe prosecution had accused the three former lands officials of aiding and abetting Gallerius Investments Limited to acquire a beach public access road.
However, Mutuku said the court's findings are that the accused persons acted in their respective capacities in the relation to the subject property.
She said the evidence adduced before the court showed that Juma Boy and Gallerius Investment did not in any way come to contact with the three accused persons.
The court also said Juma Boy had been prohibited from selling the property without the prior consent of the Commissioner for Lands, but went ahead and transferred the property.
She said it is clear from the evidence that Gallerius Investment came into the matter after the purchase of land from Juma Boy and as such the accused persons cannot be said to have in any way aided Gallerius Investment in acquiring the land.
(Edite dby V. Graham)