The Ksh7.3 billion corruption charge against Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has been dropped by the Anti-Corruption Court as announced by Senior Principal Victor Wakumile on Thursday, November 10, 2022.
This comes after the Office of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) requested the corruption case be dropped due to insufficient evidence that delayed the investigations.
During the court hearings, lead prosecutor Kuria Obadiah explained that withdrawing the charges allowed the team to undertake additional investigations and assess the suspected corruption case.
Read: DP Gachagua Gets Temporary Reprieve in KSh1.5Billion Land Case
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations was held accountable by the ODPP for the investigations’ stagnation. The DCI team allegedly did not provide the original documents and evidence that were utilized to apprehend and accuse Gachagua, according to the senior prosecutor.
“In light of the request to review, the prosecution team sat and reviewed the evidence and realized that we were not able to respond to the letters without the evidence we had requested from the DCI at the time we were charging.DCI did not respond to our request, nor did they avail the original files and the exhibits required to enable us to study the file again,” the ODPP stated.
The DP expressed his appreciation for the ODPP’s decision to drop the charges against him through his attorney, Kioko Kilukumi while continuing to claim that the matter was politically motivated by the previous administration.
Read: DCI Forged Evidence, Coerced Me to Charge Gachagua, DPP Haji Reveals
The DP and nine other officials were charged with defrauding the government of Ksh7.4 billion through shady government dealings in July, having deposited Ksh12 million as cash bail. Gachagua was accused of committing six offences, including obtaining the proceeds of crime, conspiring to conduct corruption, having a conflict of interest, money laundering, and fraudulently gaining public property.
The allegations claimed that Gachagua received Ksh7.3 billion in three bank accounts at Rafiki Micro-Finance Bank, money that was purportedly placed between 2013 and 2020.
Additionally, he is also accused of receiving Ksh104 million in proceeds of crime from the Bungoma county government between January 2015 and June 2019.
