LSK condemns police summons issued to Matiang'i lawyer Omari
Lawyer Danstan Omari briefs the media outside the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters on February 21, 2023.
Kenyan lawyers have come out to condemn the summoning of their colleague Danstan Omari over his client, former Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang'i.
The summons was issued by the Head of the Serious Crimes Unit, Mr Michael Sang.
In a statement, the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) said the move by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is "meant to intimidate, threaten and prevent him from discharging his duties as an advocate".
"We strongly condemn the actions taken by the DCI in attempting to curtail the advocate’s freedom of expression as provided under Article 19 of the Constitution. As per Section 134 of the Evidence Act, CAP. 80, the DCI should respect Advocate-Client privilege," LSK said Wednesday.
“We have asked the DCI to defer the summons issued to Danstan Omari to February 27 when I will personally represent him. LSK will not countenance any violations of the Client/Attorney privilege. We shall robustly defend our right to practice as by law provided,” LSK President Eric Theuri said.
The DCI had summoned the lawyer to shed light on claims that police officers raided the former Interior Cabinet secretary's Karen home.
He had been ordered to present himself at DCI headquarters on Wednesday at 9:30am, failure to which he will face prosecution for, amongst others, publication of false information contrary to Section 23 of the Computer Misuse and Cyber Crimes Act 2018.
The summons is part of ongoing investigations to establish whether any unauthorised activities took place at the former CS's home on the said dates and whether false information was uttered regarding the alleged raid that was denied by Interior CS Kithure Kindiki and DCI Amin Mohamed.
“I have reasons to believe that you, Danstan Omari, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, is connected to the offence and has information which can assist me in my investigations,” the summons reads.
Reacting to the summons on Tuesday, Mr Omari said it was meant to stop him from representing his client.
“I did my job as an advocate. I am now being summoned to appear to record a statement. Nowhere under the Advocates Act and the Evidence Act will an advocate be summoned to record a statement on behalf of a client. This is an attack on the legal profession to cower advocates from defending those that are perceived not to be in tandem with the regime that is in place. I will not cower from that,” Mr Omari vowed on Tuesday.
