The High Court has overturned the acquittal of former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa in the Ksh39 billion fake firearms case.
This was during the ruling of the case at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi on February 29, 2024.
The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had filed a case in court, challenging the acquittal of Echesa in the fake arms case.
“In a judgment delivered by High Court Judge Hon. Kanyi Kimondo, it was found that the trial magistrate erred in acquitting Echesa based on a lack of testimony from certain witnesses,” DPP noted in a statement.
Judge Kimondo ruled that the prosecution had presented a strong case against Echesa and that the trial court should have found him with a case to answer, hence putting him on his defense rather than acquitting him.
“Accordingly, their acquittal on December 3 2021 under section 210 of the Criminal Procedure Code on those six counts is hereby reversed and set aside,” the judge ruled.
The judge directed Rashid Echesa to appear in person before the Milimani Chief Magistrate on 4th March, 2024, for mention and directions on his defense hearing in the firearms matter.
Echesa is being accused of impersonating a person employed in public service by falsely presenting himself as the personal assistant of President William Ruto (then Deputy President) to two foreigners on February 13, 2020.
The former Sports CS is also facing charges of conspiring to defraud a Polish firm of Ksh39 billion in a military firearms deal in October 2019.
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Echesa had been charged alongside Daniel Otieno, Clifford Okoth, Kennedy Oyoo and Chrispin Oduor Odipo.
They are facing charges of conspiring to commit a felony, making a document without authority, obtaining money by false pretense, attempting to commit a felony, and uttering a false document in the Ksh39 billion fake firearm scandal.
However, in 2023 President William Ruto appointed Echesa as the chairperson of the Kenya Water Towers Agency Board.
