Magistrate got bribe through Echesa's wife

• Dec 13, 2021

The magistrate who released disgraced former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa well past working hours received a bribe from Deputy President William Ruto through Echesa’s wife, we have reliably established.

The Senior Principal Magistrate Kenneth Cheruiyot (pictured above), who has since been suspended boasted to a collages that the money he received was enough to cater for his needs until his demise.

He also boasted that he will be reinstated and promoted to a judge once Deputy President becomes the Head of State.

The magistrate was suspended for conducting night trials without permission.

He delivered the ruling on a Friday at 7.30 pm past operating hours. Courts operate between 9 am and 5 pm from Monday to Friday.

While acquitting Echesa, he stated the Director of Public Prosecutions did not avail key witnesses in the matter who included the two foreigners that were allegedly duped.

Cheruyoit ruled that there was no evidence to put the accused on their defense.

The two foreigners in the case were complainants in the case were Kozlowski Stanley Bruno, the CEO of US based ECO Advanced Technologies firm and Egyptian Mamdough Mostafa Lofty who claimed that Echesa and his co accused wanted to dupe them in the fake arms scandal.

However, the court put businessman Chrispin Odipo on his defense in one of the counts of being in possession of instruments to commit forgery.

Echesa and the three other accused persons were acquitted of fraud, forgery and impersonation charges.

Echesa was charged with Conspiracy to commit a felony, Obtaining money by face pretences, making a false document and impersonation.

The Prosecution had called a total of 18 witness in the case including defence PS Ibrahim Mohamed.

Others who testified the case were three Major officers from Kenya defence forces, a pilot, several officers from DCI and employee from the office of the Deputy President.

Most of the witnesses testified in camera due to the nature of the information regarding the department of defense that was confidential.

This is not the first controversial ruling the judge has given on the case, last year, the DPP was aggrieved by the decision of  Cheruiyot on June 4 directing police to release two firearms and a Range Rover to Echesa.