Witness says not sure Sudi enrolled at college

An investigating officer from the anti-graft agency on Wednesday narrated how Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi forged his academic certificates so that he could secure nomination to vie for the parliamentary seat in the 2013 General Election.

Led in his evidence in Chief by Senior Assistant DPP Gitonga Riungu, Derrick Kaisha told the court that from the evidence gathered, Sudi did not sit for his KCSE exam at Highway Secondary nor did he study at KIM where he claims to have attained a Diploma in Business Management.

Kaisha told Trial Magistrate Felix Kombo that they received a complaint regarding the forgeries on May 4, 2015, and investigations were initiated a month later. Kaisha subsequently wrote to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission  requesting for the self-declaration form submitted by Sudi.

The form is a statutory document required under Section 13 of the leadership and integrity act which requires a person seeking to be elected or take office shall submit it to the IEBC.

“I perused the contents of that form as filled by the accused. In particular, we were concerned with the education and qualifications bit.  I observed that Sudi indicated the highest academic qualifications he attained was a Diploma at KIM issued in 2008,” said the investigating officer.

Having made that observation, Kaisha wrote a letter to the institution to inquire whether Sudi was their student.

The commission received a response on August 10, 2015, indicating that Sudi may not have been a student at the institution.

They also indicated that in the absence of an admission number, they were unable to tell if he was a student or not.

Their response according to the investigating officer was inconclusive. He decided to call Sudi and informed him of the allegations levelled against him.

The officer requested if he could appear at Integrity Centre together with his academic certificates to which Sudi agreed but proposed they meet at the heron portico hotel on Milimani road.

The meeting took place on September 9, 2015. Kaisha was in the company of his colleague one Elizabeth Ngige.

At the meeting, the officers restated the allegations made against Sudi and requested that he provides them with any certificates he could be having.

“He said he did not have the certificates with him but undertook to provide them on September 11, 2015,” Kaisha said.

The court heard that a request was made to Sudi to record a statement to that effect to which he agreed to.

In his statement, he confirmed that he attended Tulwopnyetuny primary between 1995 and 1998.

He also indicated that he attended Highway High School where he sat his KCSE exams and that in 2006, he joined KIM to pursue a Diploma in business administration and later graduated in 2007 October.

Later, Sudi also presented to the EACC officers scanned copies of his academic certificates.

But the officer told the court that “having attended school within the environs of larger Nairobi, I could tell the school is known as Highway Secondary School and not Highway High School. That raised a red flag,” he said.

Sudi’s certificate read Highway High School.

The officer after receiving the documents told the court that he made a decision to proceed to both the Kenya National Examinations Council and KIM to verify the authenticity of the documents.

Knec informed the EACC detectives that Sudi did not register nor sit for the KCSE examinations in the year 2006 at the Highway  under the index number 4010006081.

The official indicated there was no candidate that appeared in their database who sat the KCSE 2006 exams under the name Sudi Kipchumba Oscar either at Parklands Secondary School or Highway Secondary School

Knec also confirmed Kaisha's observations that the school was known as Highway Secondary School and not Highway High School as indicated in Sudi’s KCSE exam certificate.

“The purported cert for KCSE 2006 exams that we presented to Knec for verification is obtained from a forged document,” said the officer.

Kaisha told the court he subsequently visited Highway Secondary School to ascertain whether Sudi had registered there as a student between 2003 and 2006.

He found out that based on the admissions register which he witnessed, there was no student in the name of Sudi. He also fond out that Sudi used the postal address of a private citizen to be that of Highway school.

“I was also able to confirm from the school that prior to the year 2012, the school code for Highway Secondary School was 401005 and not 401006 as contained in the copy of KCSE certificate presented to me by Sudi.”

The officer said they were also able to establish that student index number 401005081 who sat the KCSE exam was one Nicholas Otieno of admission number 14180 and who was admitted in that school on  February 17, 2003.

Further efforts by the EACC to find out if Sudi went to the Lelmorok Secondary School before allegedly joining Highway did not yield fruit.

“When I got there I found the principal of the school. Upon inquiry on whether Sudi was a student there, she indicated she was not principal at the time but when she came she was able to find a partially burned admission register,” Kaisha said.

The court heard that attempts to peruse through the record for 2000 and 2001 were inconclusive because the record was partially burned. “Therefore I couldn't tell as to whether Sudi had registered in that school or not with certainty,” he said.

In closing, the officer told the court that all the documents in question were forgeries.

“When Sudi met with myself and colleague Ngige on September 19, 2015, he uttered two false documents one being a KCSE certificate allegedly issued by Knec, and a false document being a Diploma Certificate allegedly issued by KIM,” he said.

Kaisha is the last witness in the case. Prosecution had lined up  14 witnesses.

The matter was adjourned to August 22 when Sudi will have a chance to cross-examine the investigating officer regarding the evidence he presented to court.