Jimi Wanjigi facing 11 charges as court declines to issue his arrest warrant

Jimmy Wanjigi(left) and his Wife Irene Wanjigi addressing the press at their home in Muthaiga, Jimmy termed the police siege on his home for over 72 hours as unjustified and complete fabrication insisting all his firearms found in his home are licensed18/10/2017 [Beverlyne Musili,Standard]

A court in Nyeri has declined to issue a warrant of arrest for businessman Jimi Wanjigi.

Thursday morning, Nyeri Chief Magistrate Wendy Kagendo turned down a request by the state to issue a warrant of arrest for the businessman over failure to honour court summons.

Kagendo, however directed Wanjigi who did not turn up in court to appear before her on March 5 to answer to 11 counts of charges, including being in possession of firearms without a certificate.

Immediately after the court started its business, the state through Senior Counsel Wesley Nyamache applied to have the businessman arrested for falling to appear in court despite being served with summons.

But Wanjigi, through his lawyer Mugambi Kiongora opposed the application saying the nature of service for the summons was not properly done.

“There was no seal or stamp on the summons, what was there was just a mere court case number on the said document,” Kiongora explained.

He defended his client for failure to honour court orders stating he had instructions to first ascertain the authenticity of those summons.

Wanjigi, his lawyer noted, had not been served with a copy of the charges the state was willing to prefer against him.

“For the interest of justice and fair trial, I request to be supplied with copies of the charge sheet to enable me examine the charges levelled against me by the state,” Wanjigi observed.

Kiongora, noted his client had on October last year at the Milimani High court obtained an anticipatory bail of Sh20,000 preventing the police from arresting him together with his wife.

He later made application to have the case deferred for two weeks to enable the defence lawyers including senior counsel James Orengo respond to the charges levelled against his client.

On the first count Wanjigi was charged that on October 17 at Muthaiga estate, house number 44, in Nairobi he was found in possession of a semi-automatic self-loading military assault rifle calibre 5.56mm which is a prohibited firearm.

He is also facing charges of being in possession of a military rifle serial number CN005433-13 and possession of 451 rounds of ammunition.

He faced a further charge of possessing Glock pistol serial number UAB 632 without holding firearm certificate.

Other charges on the charge sheet included six counts ranging from being in possession of prohibited firearms to holding firearms without certificate.

Security around the court and its environs was tight with dozens of police officers deployed inside and outside in anticipation of the controversial businessman to appear in person.