- The 29-year-old woman is said to be two-months pregnant.
- The prosecutor urged court to deny her bail because her case is strong and has a high chance of conviction.
Image: JOHN CHESOLI
Nuru Mahfudh, the 29-year-old woman who was arrested last Friday with cocaine worth Sh100 million will spend seven more days in custody.
Mahfudh was Thursday arraigned before Shanzu principal magistrate Yusuf Shikanda where she denied charges of illegal possession of the drugs.
The accused was caught with cocaine weighing 36,764 grammes at her house. The package had a value of Sh110 million.
Prosecutor Peris Bosibori urged the court to deny her bail.
"The offence is serious in nature, and upon conviction, attracts a fine of Sh50 million or three times the value of the drug, whichever is higher, or imprisonment of a term of 50 years or both," Bosibori said.
She said the case against Mahfudh is strong and has a high chance of conviction. She also said the accused is a flight risk, owing to her past travel history.
"The accused has previously travelled to Dubai and Tanzania through the Lunga Lunga border, hence the strong reason that she is a flight risk, and likely to jump bail and flee the country through our porous borders,” she said.
The prosecutor said there is a high likelihood that the accused person will interfere with the witnesses if released on bond.
"The accused has close family relations with some of the crucial witnesses in this case," Bosibori said.
"Therefore, releasing and allowing her to go back to her house, which is a scene of the crime, will interfere with the witnesses and the case.”
Defence lawyer Eugene Wangila dismissed the reasons given by the prosecution as "not compelling to deny bail."
While arguing out the issue of possible interference with the witnesses if the accused is released on bail, the advocate said those were just assumptions
"There is no material that has been placed before this court to show the witnesses who are coming to testify. No birth certificates or any proof," he said.
Furthermore, the defence counsel said the prosecution has no evidence to show that the accused is in touch with the witnesses, either directly or indirectly, unless "they want us to speculate".
In his submission, the advocate accused the office of accessing his client's house without a search warrant or an arrest warrant.
"If you look at the affidavit placed before you, the officer says they raided the accused person's house, which alludes to illegally obtained evidence, which is like a fruit of a poisonous tree," Wangila added.
In a request to allow his client to be released on bail, Wangila said the accused is "two months pregnant and is bleeding, and that's a serious situation."
Moreover, he said, the unborn child is a firstborn child, "and we don't want it to suffer. She is ready to come to trial, but we don't want the unborn child to suffer."
He further said the accused has no valid passport as the prosecution had alleged and thus cannot travel out of the country.
"All those passports before the court have expired. And even if so, the passports were used to travel in 2016 and backwards," Wangila said.
All the number of times that Mahfudh travelled out of the country, Wangila told the court, she went to visit her family members and relatives in neighbouring Tanzania and to work in the United Arab Emirates.
The magistrate directed the accused be held in custody for seven more days to allow the probation officer to provide more details about her.
Mahfudh will be detained at Shimo La Tewa Prison and provided with health care and taken to the hospital whenever necessary, Shikanda said.
The case will be mentioned on June 3.
(edited by Amol Awuor)