Kenya's High Court refused to vacate country's DCI prison sentence

NAIROBI, Kenya

The High Court of Kenya has refused to vacate Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti's four-month prison sentence, which was handed last week.

Instead, the court ordered that the case be heard on Thursday in a ruling delivered on Wednesday.

Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki had filed an application with the High Court, asking for Kinoti's sentence at the Kamiti Maximum Prison to be suspended pending the hearing and decision of his petition.

Kinoti was sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of court last Thursday after failing to comply with court orders to return firearms seized from businessman Jimi Wanjigi.

He has until Thursday to surrender to the prison within 7 days, failure to which the Directorate of Public Prosecutions has been instructed to issue an arrest warrant against him. 

The AG, on the other hand, claims that the contempt charges against Kinoti were misdirected because the Firearms Licencing Board is the custodian of firearms.

He also claims, through lawyer Cecil Miller, that Kinoti has no role in the handling of civilian firearms.

“The DCI has since written to the Attorney-General instructing them to write to Mr. Wanjigi’s advocates, informing them to collect their firearms from the board. By doing so, the DCI has purged the contempt,” states AG Kariuki in court papers seen by Daily Nation.

“Wanjigi maliciously failed to failed to disclose to this court material facts which if were disclosed, the court would have arrived at a different decision,” he adds, referring to Kinoti’s claims that he had already informed Wanjigi to get his guns from the board even before the court sentence.

On Sunday, Kinoti said he would rather go to jail than return Wanjigi’s confiscated firearms, saying he does have custody of the firearms in question.

"The petitioner and the judge know it's the board that is the custodian of civilian firearms. But instead of the court asking the right authority, they turn to Kinoti,” said Kinoti. 

“What is the nexus between the DCI and the person whose license was revoked?The DCI, even if he is jailed for 100 years, can't give Wanjigi firearms he doesn't have," he added.

Kinoti further stated that even if he were to be in possession of the firearms, he would not return them to Wanjigi because they are prohibited, allowed for use only by the special forces.

"Even if the DCI had the firearms, and gave them back to Wanjigi, he would be breaking the law as the license to have the guns has been revoked. Some of the guns confiscated during the raid are prohibited firearms as they belong to special forces. Why would a judge order that such be returned to a civilian?"

In 2017, police seized seven firearms from the businessman's home in Malindi.

In June 2019, Justice Chacha Mwita ruled that the State acted irrationally by seizing Wanjigi's firearms while he still had a valid license.

The DCI boss had been given 30 days in early 2021 by the High Court in Nairobi to return Wanjigi's firearms, as ordered in 2019. 

The deadline for the DCI to comply with the orders was March 25, 2021.

After DCI failed to return the firearms, Wanjigi filed a contempt of court proceedings suit, seeking to have them committed to civil jail.