KDF's complex Mombasa legal tussle with lawyers over freed ex-soldiers

Kenya Defense Forces training [Courtesy]

KDF launches appeal against acquittal of 26 ex-soldiers

The Director of Public Prosecutions is locked in a legal tussle with the lawyers of 26 former soldiers acquitted of desertion charges in 2015.

The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) wants to use the amended KDF Act to launch an appeal overturning the High Court’s decision to set the ex-Kenya Navy soldiers free after a court martial had slapped them with life sentences one year earlier.

High Court judge Martin Muya had found there wasn't enough evidence to prove the ex-soldiers had deserted duty in Somalia.

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal directed the State to appear next Thursday, when it will deliver judgement on the application.

The former soldiers had been convicted of deserting the military to work for US security firms in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The KDF wants them sent back to jail to serve as an example to other soldiers who may harbour thoughts of deserting the military.

Lawyer Samuel Odhiambo, representing the ex-soldiers, wants the Appellate court to dismiss the application on grounds that there was no provision in the old KDF Act for the State to appeal against his clients’ acquittal.

Mr Odhiambo said when the ex-soldiers were being acquitted, the KDF Act 2012 only provided for appeal for the accused but not the prosecution, adding that the law was only changed after the fact to give the prosecution a foothold to launch an appeal against his clients.