Embattled FKF boss Nick Mwendwa court case to be determined on November 8
A Kiambu court will on November 8, 2022, rule on whether or not embattled Federation of Kenya Football (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa will be tried for economic crimes.
In arriving at the decision, senior resident magistrate Wilson Rading indicated the ruling that could potentially pave way for Mwendwa’s trial was not yet ready.
Rading had set the ruling for November 2, 2022, but now says work commitments had weighed down on him.
Mwendwa through lawyers Charles Njenga, Victor Omwebu, and former Law Society of Kenya president Eric Mutua has opposed a fresh bid to prosecute him, describing the same as an affront to his fundamental and constitutional rights.
The lawyers told the court the football boss had already been discharged in a graft case on July 6, 2022, and therefore it would be illegal to prosecute him on the same facts he had been freed of.
But the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) through prosecutor Ms Everlyn Onunga insists he has enough evidence to support and prove the theft charges against the football boss.
In the first theft charge, Mwendwa is alleged to have stolen KSh2,500,000 on May 15 2021, being the property of FKF when he served as president of the federation.
The second charge states that on March 4, 2021, Mwendwa stole Sh5million the property of FKF when he served as its president.
The third charge is that of stealing Sh1million on May 6, 2021, while the last count is of conspiring to defraud FKF Sh29,502,709 jointly with others, not before the court.
Ms Onunga told Wilson Rading the decision to charge Mwendwa was ‘informed by the sufficiency of evidence or record and the public interest and not any other consideration’.
Ms Onunga appearing alongside Ms Terry Kehoro presented to the court and to Mwendwa lawyers Eric Mutua, Charles Njenga, and Victor Omwebu, 71 documents in support of the four charges.
The documentary evidence includes bank transactions from Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), NCBA, and NIC Bank including the approved FKF budgets.
“FKF approved budgets for the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 was Sh797,259,232 Sh1,241,991,520 and Sh1,004,565,145 respectively,” the inspection report of the FKF committee appointed by outgoing Sports CS Amina Mohammed shows.
Ms Onunga urged Rading to dismiss in its entirety the application by Mwendwa seeking to block the DPP from prosecuting him saying it has not met the threshold.
Onunga told Rading the Anti-Corruption High Court Judge Esther Maina declined to restrain the Kiambu trial.
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