Prime Minister Raila Odinga yesterday appeared in court for the second time in a month to testify in a land case involving a company he is associated with. Raila appeared before Kilifi senior resident magistrate Ada Obura in the case which involves Kango Entreprise Ltd, associated with Raila, and a British national John Presser Unsworth. Journalists were however barred from covering the case.
The hearing at the Kilifi court yesterday was the criminal part of the case whose civil part was heard late last month in Malindi before Lady Justice Hellen Omondi. In the case, Unsworth wants the court to declare he is the rightful owner of the land which he allegedly bought from former Malindi mayor Frederic Kazungu Diwani.
In Malindi, Raila had told the court that he bought the beach plot from Diwani in 1999. But Diwani later went on to fraudulently sell the same piece of land to Unsworth. He pleaded guilty to the offence and was fined Sh700,000 in 2009.
Hundreds of curious residents converged outside the Kilifi courts to hear Raila testify but their efforts were thwarted when his aides closed the court room doors.
Angry journalists tried to get their way in to no success. Raila, who arrived at the law courts at around 12.15pm, spent over an hour in the courtroom. He emerged at around 1.28pm and addressed the press. He said he had confidence justice will take its course as a new constitutional dispensation is in place in the country. “I have discharged my constitutional duty as a citizen of this country by testifying in the court of law. I do not want to influence any decision that will be made,” he said.
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