A Judiciary staff is on a High Court radar over the missing evidence in Martha Karua’s petition against Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru.
Justice Lucy Gitari of Kerugoya High Court asked the court’s deputy registrar to avail a colleague who received Ms Karua’s petition papers.
The latest order answers Martha Karua’s request to have the person who wrote the receipt on September 6, 2017 brought in court to explain how the evidence was lost within the court’s premises.
She said it was a sign of “a wide conspiracy” and thus the court had to conduct its internal inquiry to the latter. The Narc-Kenya leader mysteriously lost a USB disk that carried video evidence on voter bribery.
Upon protest, her rival Anne Waiguru’s lawyers and those representing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) asked Ms Karua to lodge a formal application to present the video evidence.
Gitobu Imanyara, Karua’s lawyer argued that there were clear attempts to interfere with the case. He exemplified his argument by citing a number of interferences of petitioner witnesses, Nation reported.“One witness has withdrawn. Another witness by the name Mercy Kangi was called via phone by a person identified as Kamwaki," he explained.
The sitting judge, Justice Gitari directed that a formal statement to be registered against the number used to contact Mercy Kangi. IEBC through its lawyer, Joe Kathungu, dismissed Ms Karua’s argument that the voting exercise that led to Anne Waiguru’s win was coupled with illegalities and irregularities.
Besides questioning why Ms Karua failed to indicate in the petition that her agents were denied access to one of the election statutory forms, the IEBC lawyer denied that governor Waiguru's votes were inflated by 48,000 votes through fraud.
But the Narc-Kenya leader maintained that “the exercise was fraud and results were fraudulent.” She claimed that IEBC destroyed the records by reconfiguring the Kiems kits which led to widespread inflation of votes.
Last month, Justice Gitari allowed Martha Karua’s application to have findings on scrutiny of election materials used in the Kirinyaga 2017 gubernatorial poll admitted in court as evidence.
The audit report by the court’s deputy registrar was to form part of the evidence in the petition. However, the court declined to allow Ms Karua’s version of the scrutiny report, saying her “report is not what was emailed by the registrar to the parties.”
The respondents had said they would agree to the registrar’s report only.