Citing precedent, the Anti-Corruption Court yesterday discharged former Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Gladys Boss Shollei and seven others accused of irregularly buying a Sh310 million house for the Chief Justice.
They were also discharged in another corruption case relating to construction of Sh150 million court buildings in Tawa, Mavoko and Garsen.
This is after the DPP sought to have the two charges withdrawn.
“A Court of Appeal ruling in former Transport CS Engineer Michael Kamau’s appeal over his graft case terminated it on grounds that the EACC was not properly constituted during his investigation and prosecution,” Assistant DPP Jacob Ondari said.
“We, therefore, seek to have these cases withdrawn, since they were also investigated during the same period.”
The two cases were pending before Milimani trial magistrates Felix Kombo and Liz Gicheha, who allowed the DPP’s application to discharge the accused persons in both graft cases.
Shollei, now the women representative for Uasin Gishu, was discharged alongside her former deputy Kakai Kissinger and six former members of the judiciary’s tender committee, namely Martin Okwata, Benedict Omollo, Nicholas Okwemwa, Nicholas Mbeba, Thomas Atak and Wycliff Obunde.
They were all charged with improperly conferring a Sh310 million benefit to former Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama’s Holdings Limited, the company from which the palatial building in Runda, Nairobi, was bought.
Prosecution had also accused them of wilfully failing to comply with the law on managing public funds as the judiciary’s accounting officer, and engaging in the project without prior planning.