A former Wajir county chief officer who was sentenced to four years in jail in a Sh26 million corruption case is breathing a sigh of relief after he was acquitted.
The Court of Appeal has quashed the conviction of Daud Abdullahi Omar whose four-year sentence by a magistrate was upheld by the High Court.
Appellate judges Lydia Achode, Patrick Kiage and Abida Ali Aroni found Abdullahi not to have been a signatory at the time the offence was committed.
Abdullahi was a former chief officer for finance and economic planning in the county executive.
He was convicted together with Ahmed Omar and Jeff Mworia who were also county officials.
In the judgement, the judges noted the common ground that the appellant did write the letter dated October 6, 2018, which factually communicated that the department was in a period of transition.
The judges added that chief officer chief officer Ahmed Omar was no longer a signatory to the imprest account and authorised Mworia, who was the head of treasury and an existing signatory, to be the sole signatory to the account until further communication.
The defence mounted by Abdullahi was that there was no intention to breach the law and that the designation of Mworia as sole signatory was in an attempt to deal with a present crisis at the county where casual employees who had gone for months without pay were restless.
The court noted that with great respect to the High Court judge that she seemed to have allowed the fact that some money was withdrawn through cheques signed by the one signatory, Mworia, to unduly colour her judgment and cloud her assessment of the appellant’s defence.
“This is particularly troubling when considered against the fact Mworia was himself acquitted of the charges of abuse of office and fraudulent acquisition of public property. “These charges were on the basis that Mworia had allegedly conferred upon himself the benefit of and fraudulently acquired shs.26,100,000 withdrawn for the Standing Imprest Account”, the judgement reads.
The court said that there was no evidence of fraudulent acquisition and Mworia was exonerated and acquitted.
“From our reading of the record, there was no evidence nor suggestion made to the appellant by the prosecution, that “there were many other officers in that department who could have been designated signatories together with Jeff Mworia.”
The judges further found Abdullahi’s conviction for the offence of willful failure to comply with the law relating to management of public funds was safe.
“We think that had the two courts below attempted an enquiring into whether the appellant’s action was in the circumstances reasonable, they would as likely as not have concluded in the affirmative. Being of that view ourselves, we must conclude that the appellant was entitled to and should have been accorded the benefit of doubt,” they ruled.
“In the result, we quash the appellant’s conviction, set aside the sentence and direct that if held on account of this case, the appellant shall be set at liberty forthwith unless otherwise lawfully held.”
In 2021, Anti-corruption chief magistrate Teresia Murigi ruled the prosecution had proved its case against Ahmed Omar, Daud Abdullahi and Jeff Mworia.
She convicted the three even
though they did not benefit from
the cash.
They were handed a fine of
Sh800,000 to escape the four-year
jail term.
