Three traders arrested in unsafe sugar probe released on bail

Three traders suspected of selling tonnes of illegal and dangerous sugar in Nairobi were yesterday charged at the Milimani Law Courts.

Dahir Ahmed Hassan, Mohammed Dahir and Ahmed Sheikh Mohamed denied the charges before Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku yesterday and were released on Sh2 million bond or cash bail of Sh300,000.

In the first count, they were charged with offering for sale sub-standard white sugar contrary to the law.

The court heard that on June 4, 2018, at Diamond Wholesalers stores in Eastleigh estate, jointly with others not in court, they were found offering for sale 922 bags of sub-standard white sugar valued at Sh3,070,260 contrary to the requirements of Kenya's standard specification for white sugar.

In the second count, they were charged with offering for sale 204 bags of sub-standard brown sugar valued at Sh679,000 against the law on similar dates and place.

The three were also charged with using the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) standardisation mark on the sugar without a permit.

They were also charged with offering for sale brown sugar under unhygienic conditions contrary to the law.

The suspects were accused of packaging brown sugar under poor hygienic conditions, rendering the product unsafe and compromising its quality.

Affidavit filed

In an affidavit filed by Moses Gituathi, an officer attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), the three were arrested at Eastleigh Section 3 on June 5 and booked at Shauri Moyo Police Station.

Mr Gituathi told the court the accused were found repackaging 1,474 bags of Brazilian raw sugar that was labelled unfit for direct human consumption into bags branded with the names of various local sugar companies.

“The recovered sugar is suspected to be extremely harmful to human health,” said Gituathi.

The investigations are being conducted by a multi-agency team including the Anti-Counterfeit Agency, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Bureau of Standards, Government Chemist and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The agencies pleaded for more time to finish investigations.

The court heard that probe team required more time for sampling and analysis of the suspect sugar.

The lead investigator argued that considering that the sugar was deemed unfit for human consumption, it was necessary to expand investigations to all sugar outlets that may have handled it across the country, which required more time.

Import documents

According to the DCI, the investigations will be expanded to the Port of Mombasa to authenticate import documents provided by the suspects and local sugar companies whose packaging bags were found on the suspects.

The prosecution argued that the respondents were a flight risk since their true identities had not been confirmed.

“Search on the same at the National Registration Bureau is needed to ascertain the respondents' identity," said Gituathi.

Samson Nyamberi, the lawyer for the suspects, had on June 6 opposed an application by the prosecution to have them detained for 21 days, arguing that there was not enough evidence to have them detained.

“The application by prosecution is only based on mere pieces of paper dated June 6, 2018,” said Mr Nyaberi.