The tax evasion case befalling Humphrey Kariuki has been pushed forward for a month. The move was reached after prosecutors reportedly failed to produce witness statements towards a case amounting to Sh 41 billion tax.
Office of the Director for Public Prosecutions was yet to issue statements for 21 statements, even as prosecutors claimed that they had already given up-to over 6,000 statements in form of soft copy.
Lawyers representing Humphrey, Kioko Kilukumi and Cecil Miller appearing before Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku accused the prosecution side of having not complied with court orders, which directed that the accused be served with witness statements.
"The prosecution had up-to 28 witnesses but surprisingly, only statements from seven witnesses were given out," wondered Kilukumi.
The lawyers, Kilukumi and Miller insisted that all they needed was hard copy statements in addition to an inventory for all the statements by the witnesses.
The defence team claimed that they could not settle for a date in absence of the statements. In October 2019, the court had issued a directive which gave the prosecution up to January 14, to have gathered all the information which was to be required during the case.
This was after the state claimed that it was not prepared to carry on with the case. The case will be mentioned again in February 26.