Harun Mwau wants his name cleared from drug report

BY KURIAN MUSA

NAIROBI, KENYA: Former Kilome Member of Parliament Harun Mwau wants references made in his name deleted from a report done by a South African researcher.

The report captured Mwau as a drug dealer, violent and involved in money Laundering and contract killings.

Before High court Judge Mumbi Ngugi, advocate Nchogu Omwanza for Mr Mwau said any academic work requires a higher standard of credibility.

The report was launched on October 4, 2011 and dubbed ‘Termites at work’ Transnational organized crime and state erosion in Kenya published by International peace Institute.

The report is based on information given in parliament by then Minister of Internal Security George Saitoti.

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“My client is entitled to the correction and deletion of the untrue and misleading information as disseminated in the report,” Omwanza said.

Africog Lawyer Gladwell Otieno said that Mwau’s rights have not been violated through an affidavit.

Otieno said Africog holds that there is no false or misleading information relating to the petitioner has that has been published.

She said the declarations sought by Mwau cannot be granted by the courts, since there is no proof that the rights of Mwau to his privacy and dignity have been violated.

Peter Gastro told the court through an affidavit that in 2009 he had been approached by the government of Kenya to serve on a National task force on Police reforms as an international expert and vice-chair of the task.

So it is during this time that he realised that there was too much corruption and organized crime in Kenya and took a study on ‘Transnational organized crime in Kenya’.

The South African National, On October 2011, launched a 16 paged policy paper dubbed: ‘Drug trafficking, the penetration of politics and administration’

He quoted then Minister –Saitoti who had announced Harun Mwau then an assistant Minster of Transport and businessman Ali Punjani as being investigated for drug trafficking.

Lawyer Mbugua Murethi said: “The court is not meant to clear names because of the mix-up of prayers sought as public interest outweighs private interest.”

He further said that Mwau has only come two years later to complain about the report when the whole report was in public domain.

Mbugua said that the state has since denied it is not the author of the report, that the roles the government played was administrative.

On February 17, 2011, the state released an interim report which showed that investigations were ongoing and awaiting to be tabled by the late Minister of Internal Security Saitoti in Parliament.

“There is no evidence that has been placed in court to show that the petitioner wants to clear his name,” Mbugua said.

He said that the IPI –International peace institute, has not been made party to the suit and the orders sought needs to be investigated.

AG recants his statements

However, the Attorney General has abandoned his earlier statements that he agree with the publications published by the South African expert.

The state counsel said that there is a generalization that the police force, ministry of immigration, Military and the Judiciary have failed in rendering credible investigations and punishments of people including Mr Mwau suspected in engaging in drug trafficking and money laundering.

“Composite conclusions shows that investigations have been done and there have been findings,” The Ag Said. He added that the first respondents claim that there have been no investigations are unfounded.

He dismissed Peters report saying it is based on Newspaper cuttings and blogs.

The Director of public prosecutions (DPP) told the court that it should not be direct to instruct the Inspector General of police to investigate the matter because it would amount to abuse of court process.

“It would not be in the interest of justice or public interest to investigate the matter, a waste of public funds as investigations had been completed,” said the DPP.

Unless there is a constitutional violation against the petitioner, the DPP contends that there is none and it is not biased as claimed by one of the parties.

“There is no Evidence that the DPP is biased while handling the matter,” DPP said.

The court will make a ruling on the matter on May 9, 2014 on whether to delete Mwau name from the report.