Oil tycoon Yagnesh Devani will spend the next 13 days at an Industrial area remand pending a court ruling on whether he will be released on bond after he was charged with fraud.
In the meantime, Milimani Magistrate Thomas Nzyuki directed that a pre-bail report be filed before the court within the next seven days.
The report, he said, should detail persons related to him, their whereabouts and the social behaviour of the accused person.
"The pre-bail report should be done with an element of a social enquiry.. Find out persons related to him. Also, you need to find out about his behaviour, where the wife and the son are," said the Magistrate.
The directive came after the tycoon denied fraud charges in relation to the 2008 Triton oil scandal.
His release on bail was strongly opposed by the prosecution for fear that he may abscond.
"For someone who absconded court for 16 years to a point extradition proceedings was done to compel him to come back to attend to his matters is a compelling reason to deny him bail," said the prosecution.
Devani's legal team led by Moses Kurgat undertook to fully cooperate with the probation officers and have the report filed in court in good time.
Wednesday's plea-taking had initially been opposed during the morning court session.
Kurgat told Magistrate Nzyuki that it wouldn't be appropriate to have Triton charged because the company was liquidated.
Devani was allegedly the managing director of Triton at the time the case started.
"The official liquidator should be in court to appear for Triton," said Kurgat.
But state counsel Jeremiah Walusala urged the court to proceed with the plea-taking taking saying they are not aware of the company being under liquidation.
"There is no document or any pleadings shown to support his submission," he said.
This prompted the court to ask for information regarding ownership of Triton as of December 2007.
Nzyuki also asked parties answer to questions on who should be held responsible on behalf of Triton.
"Should it be the official receiver or the directors and who are these directors?" posed the Magistrate.
As the details of this information are sought and tabled before court, Nzyuki said he will proceed with the plea taking of charges facing Devani and defer those related to the company.
The court clerk then proceeded to read out the charges levelled against Devani.
He faced eleven counts of fraud all ranging from conspiracy to defraud, obtaining by false pretenses and fraudulent disposition of mortgaged goods.
On count one, he was charged with fraudulent disposition of mortgaged goods.
It's alleged that Devani on September 5, 2008, being the Managing Director of Triton Petroleum Company Limited, together with others before the court being the mortgagor of 19,186.130 cubics (Diesel) with intent to defraud the mortgagee, Emirates National Oil Company (Singapore) Limited, disposed of a volume of 13,054,850 cubic meters valued at USD 10,146,888.36 and Sh32,017,783.66 (totalling Sh1.6bn) of the said fuel to Total Kenya Limited without the consent of Emirates National Oil Company (Singapore) Limited, the mortgagee.
He faced another count of conspiring to defraud Kenya Shell Limited of USD 2.2m and Sh7,059,201.59 by purporting that Triton Petroleum Company Limited had a volume of 4,449.42 cubic meters of diesel (AGO) held by Kenya Pipeline Company Limited at the Kipevu oil storage facility available for sale.
He denied all charges levelled against him.
The ruling will be delivered on August 19 at 11 am.
