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A Mombasa lawyer has sued Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko for defamation.
Lucy Momanyi accuses Sonko, who is eyeing the Nairobi gubernatorial seat, of depicting her as a “corrupt murderer and political saboteur” on national television. Sonko denied the claims and filed a replying affidavit accusing Momanyi of malice and refusing to accept a fair comment.
Momanyi’s beef with Sonko began over a case in which she is representing German investor Morgenstern Joachim, who claims that a man who purported to be Sonko’s father swindled him of Sh16 million, pretending he could sell him a beach plot in Shanzu, Mombasa in 2009.
Joachim, the proprietor of Happiness Real Estate in Diani, claims that a man going by the name, Ruwa Mwaruwa Kurera, together with another man who resembled Mike Sonko, and going by the name Mike Munga Kurera as per his national ID and posing as Kurera’s son, accompanied him to a bank where he transferred the money.
Momanyi sued Sonko in May 2014 over alleged phone threats to drop the land case. Both matters have been lying in limbo since. But a date for the defamation case has been set for July 17.
In her plaint, Lucy states that Sonko uttered false and malicious statements calculated to disparage her character.
“Sonko accused me of not being fit to practice as an advocate, that I was involved in political sabotage and cannot be trusted to represent the public in anything, claims that have resulted in lost business,” she stated in her plaint.
Momanyi has alleged that she has a photo of Sonko together with broker Ruwa Mwaruwa Kurera inside a banking hall while waiting for the money transfer.
But Sonko has denied the claims and repudiated the contests of her affidavit, insisting he only spoke on TV in response to accusations made against him by Momanyi.
Sonko says the alleged defamatory remarks were made “as an issue of public interest and the statement was not in any way malicious, but was in response to accusations made and/or questions raised relating to the defendant by the plaintiff and which in retaliation or response were fair and just.”
Sonko is alleged to have acted as the son to the ailing Kurera and actively participated in the transaction in 2002. Momanyi has written to the Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko to have the file recalled after police only charged Kurera.
