A forensic document examiner on Tuesday told an anti-corruption court that the school leaving certificate provided by Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi to the electoral agency was forged.
Jacob Oduor currently working with the Ethics and Anti-corruption commission disapproved of the leaving certificate provided to IEBC by Sudi allegedly signed by Highway School principal Jadiel Kaburu Mbogori.
He told Trial Magistrate Felix Kombo that there was an instruction memo from the investigating officer one Derrick Kaisha, instructing him to analyse the signature of the principal on the certificate.
The witness was also required to check the self-declaration form submitted to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission by Sudi.
He prepared reports regarding the documents which now form part of the evidence being used in court to nail the MP.
“I was provided with several specimen signatures. By comparing the signatures, I made an opinion that this signature on the leaving certificate was made by a different author," he said.
Oduor was testifying in a case in which Sudi has been charged with forging his academic certificates and presenting a false declaration to the poll agency officials while seeking clearance from the IEBC and EACC to contest in the 2013 general election.
He is also accused of making a false declaration under oath through a self-declaration form to IEBC at Barng'etuny Plaza in Eldoret in 2015. This is contrary to section 46 of the Leadership and Integrity Act.
The evidence produced in court by the document examiner corroborated testimonies of earlier witnesses regarding the authenticity of Sudi’s papers.
On May 19, 2022, the former principal of Highway Secondary School told court that Kapseret MP Sudi did not sit for his KCSE exam at the said school in 2006.
Patrick Maritim said Sudi’s name did not appear anywhere in the school's register at the time he was the principal there.
He said index 81 which Sudi allegedly forged belonged to one Nicholas Otieno.
Earlier accounts by former Head of Examinations at Kenya Institute of Management John Mateshe said their records prove that Sudi has never registered as a student of the institute.
Mateshe, who was the tenth prosecution witness, told the court that a copy of the Sudi's certificate presented to the institution by the anti-graft agency was not a copy of a genuine document issued by KIM.
“The number 36262 on the certificate presented to me belongs to a certificate issued to one Elkana Kimutai of admission number NRB/20870 of Diploma in purchasing and supplies management which was issued on September 24, 2009,” said the witness.
At the same time, an official with the Kenya National Examinations Council who has also testified in the case, states that Sudi did not sit for the 2006 KCSE examinations as earlier alleged.
The evidence of the Principal Examinations Secretary Nabiki Ene Kashu is that Sudi did not register nor sit for the 2006 KCSE examination at Highway Secondary School.
In cross-examination, the witness agreed with the defence counsels that age, stress, disease and even time lapse would change the variation in terms of the signatures. The margin of error he said could only be 1.5 per cent.