In courts: Linturi loan row - property case filed by Kitany’s heirs to be heard

Former Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi will be in court today for the hearing of a case in which he was sued by the children of his former wife, Maryanne Kitany.

Kitany, now MP for Aldai constituency, underwent a messy divorce with Linturi in 2019, whose proceedings were beamed live on television.

The acrimonious fallout was escalated after Kitany's two children filed a case where they sought to stop Linturi from taking loans using a property that the then Meru Senator co-owned with his estranged wife.

The case was filed by Arnold Kipkurui, the director of Noniko Holdings Limited, together with shareholder Rhoda Kitany. Both are Kitany's children.

They sought an injunction against Atticon, a company associated with Linturi, from using parcels of land in Nairobi and Meru co-owned by the couple as security for loans from Family Bank.

They asked the High Court to restrain Atticon Limited, Linturi and Family Bank Limited from using a parcel of land in Kileleshwa and another property in Nyari as security for loans.

The two argued that Linturi and his company had previously used the properties to secure a loan of Sh11,250,000 in June 2017.

They also claimed that Linturi took another loan of Sh26.2 million in June 2017 using the Nyari property's title as security.

“Pending the hearing and determination of the instant application, the court be pleased to grant a temporary injunction restraining the defendants Atticon Limited, Mithika Linturi, Emily Nkirote Buantai and Family Bank Limited from registering and or causing to be registered any other or further charge, mortgage, entry and or encumbrance whatsoever with the register of lands,” the application read.

Naniko Holdings Limited held that it was the registered proprietor of the properties and had never been requested to execute, register or cause to be executed any legal charge over the parcels.

They claimed to have discovered around December 2018 that the lease to the suit property, as well as its title deed, were missing, only to learn two months later that it had been charged to Family Bank to secure the two loans.

They said the matter had been reported to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for probe.

“The purported legal charges and or encumbrances over the suit premises and the suit property are a product of fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation and outright illegality and the subsistence of the impugned transactions violate the plaintiffs’ inalienable property rights,” Kipkurui said in sworn affidavits.

Today, Justice Dorah Chepkwony will hear the main suit in the matter at the Milimani High Court's commercial and tax division.