Jailing Kinoti and Wanjigi’s guns; Case proves rule of law still matters

What a stunning reversal! For a man so utterly consumed with garish dramas, George Kinoti’s entirely self-inflicted current predicament is uncannily consistent with his fast and loose modus operandi.

At the height of the post-election stand-off in 2017, police officers staged raids at Wanjigi’s residential properties. To obtain warrants for entry and search, they had told the court that they had reason to believe that illegal firearms, ammunition and explosives were kept there. Between Malindi, Mombasa, Muthaiga and Parklands, the police claimed that military-grade self-loading rifles, shotguns and other firearms were recovered, together with the nasty accessories that go with them.

Protesting that he was a licensed gun holder, Wanjigi petitioned the High Court to protect him against the police, who literally besieged him at his Muthaiga house. The drama at this point was so intense that media firms deployed broadcasting units and standby crew, while Raila Odinga and his consiglieri had to lodge therein temporarily.

After a few months’ hiatus, presumably to focus on locating, then hounding David Ndii and viciously disrupting his family’s vacation in Diani, on some outrageous pretexts, the police once again focused their undiminished zeal on Wanjigi in January, 2018. 

Dozens of coppers in several vehicles pursued him through city roads and finally blocked his car, causing a standstill on a busy highway, as they attempted to extract him from the car. He did not budge, and they had to satisfy themselves with affixing summons to the vehicle and shuffling away. Shortly afterwards, Wanjigi was charged with 11 counts of firearm-related offences.

Valid firearm licence

The High Court, which had blocked Wanjigi’s arrest, subsequently heard, basically, a legalized version of his statement to the media. He had complained that he had gone home to find officers from the “multi-agency” (task force of Flying Squad and Special Crimes Prevention Unit) under the beds, but acting on orders from above. 

For their part, the DCI pleaded that after searching Wanjigi’s Nairobi and Mombasa homes, and obtaining warrants from Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi, they deemed it fit to charge him before the Chief Magistrate in Nyeri because it was in his rural home.

In April, 2019, Judge Pauline Nyamweya found that the Inspector-general of the National Police Service and the Director of Public Prosecutions had abused their offices in their entire approach to the Wanjigi saga. The judge also found that the duo had acted in bad faith and were motivated by extraneous factors.

All 11 charges against Wanjigi were therefore quashed. A couple of months later, Judge Chacha Mwita of the High Court found that Wanjigi still held a valid firearm licence and that in acting unlawfully, while actuated by malice, the ODPP and Inspector-General had violated his rights. All seven guns were therefore to be returned to him.

Arrogant immunity

This should have been the end of the matter, except that it wasn’t. The guns were not returned. Defiances of a contemptuous nature were recklessly uttered. Wanjigi returned to court to enforce compliance by means of contempt proceedings. Contempt of court refers to conduct deemed to undermine the authority of courts of law through disrespect or disobedience of their orders or officers.

Even then, the respondents did not seem to attach any importance to these proceedings and evinced scanty comprehension of their implications. They were found to be in contempt and summoned to show why they should not be convicted. Unyieldingly lackadaisical, they left the court with no choice but to sentence them. They were to be arrested or present themselves at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison where they would serve their sentences. Obviously, this did not happen.

There comes a time when the political cost of some positions becomes unsustainable. There was no longer any benefit in condoning impunity which had descended to the level of frontal assault on judicial authority and the rule of law, especially where the optics support the inference of Executive abetment. Kinoti was on his own.

When he finally woke up to the necessity of defending himself, he discovered that his contempt of court had compounded: he had not only disobeyed the court order to return Wanjigi’s guns, he had also defied the court’s order to turn himself in for defying that court order.

Thus, the rampant, implacable hunter became a craven, cowering prey. Kinoti, who hitherto projected arrogant immunity to judicial sanction, desperately rushed to the Court of Appeal for the protection of an order of stay of execution, which he finally got. Indeed, in obtaining judicial reprieve, he not only submitted to the court’s authority; he also acknowledged his legal status as a sentenced convict.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court and a former State House speech writer.