DPP, DCI in silent audit of Kinoti's decisions on land cases

Former DCI boss George Kinoti. [File, Standard] Former Director Directorate of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, who was hounded out of Kiambu Road office days after President William Ruto was sworn in last September, is facing a silent audit of some of the investigations that he undertook. The audit is specifically focused on some controversial land fraud matters that the former DCI boss and his investigators at the Land Fraud Investigation team handled. So far, two high profile cases that Kinoti and his team had already concluded have been trashed by a new team of land investigators and officials from the office of the Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji. The cases that have been reviewed and the findings by the Kinoti team trashed include the land fraud cases involving politician Jimi Wanjigi and Mombasa tycoon Ashok Doshi. Haji, In a press statement on March 19, alluded to the ongoing audit of Kinoti's decisions. "It's noteworthy that as ODPP, we have also received numerous complaints from parties, advocates, and the Law Society of Kenya regarding land and related cases pending before the court as a result of unprofessional and unethical investigations by the former DCI," he said. "In light of the above and to ensure the fair administration of justice, I have constituted a team of prosecutors to review the aforementioned complaints and submitted in line with the Constitution..." Haji said a preliminary report at the time indicated that examination reports were irregularly issued to clear intended suspects and or implicate victims thereby occasioning grave injustice to parties. While Wanjigi is expected to testify another suspect, Doshi is now been treated as suspect in relation to a dispute over land in the city worth billions of shillings. The Coast tycoon was arraigned on April 17 in a Nairobi court where he denied charges of defrauding the government Sh1.2 million in 1992, by forging a land stamp duty receipt. Doshi and his company Magnum Properties Ltd were charged with four counts of land fraud, forging land documents and forcefully taking over the land located at Nairobi's Processional Way. According to the charges, Doshi who is a director at Doshi Group of Companies allegedly hatched the plan to defraud the land owned by Greenview Lodge Limited in 1992 when he forged a stamp duty from the Ministry of Lands to claim ownership. In October 2021, Doshi and his wife lost a petition in which they had sought a permanent restrain against the police and the DPP from arresting and charging them over alleged fraud relating to the prime parcel of land. The land is claimed by Doshi and another company. In court documents, the Doshis said they were the registered owners of the land. Records show the parcel was originally owned by Greenview Lodge Ltd which sold to Magnum Properties Ltd before it was transferred in 2018 for Sh150 million. The Doshis said despite having sold the land to Magnum Properties Ltd, Greenview Lodge Ltd and its director Jennifer Nthenya, had lodged numerous complaints to various government institutions. The petitioners claimed that Greenview Lodge Ltd and Nthenya, in their complaints, alleged that the land had been fraudulently transferred to Magnum Properties Ltd and subsequently to Doshi. At the time, the Doshis claimed that the complaints had been investigated by various government agencies, including the police and DPP. The investigative agencies, he said in court papers, had dismissed all the claims of ownership dispute. But Greenview Lodge in response documents said it is the legitimate proprietor of the land, allocated to them by Government in 1986. And the criminal case on businessman Wanjigi took a different turn when the DCI presented in court another man. On Wednesday Samuel Njuguna Chege, 53, was charged with forgery of Sh500 million title deed of an up-market property belonging Wanjigi. Njuguna has been charged with fraud, alongside nine others who did not appear before Milimani Chief Magistrate Susan Shitubi. Chege faced 17 counts filed against him and the co-directors of Horizon Hills Limited. The prosecution had alleged that he had sold and transferred Wanjigi's land for Sh33,600,000 to Horizon Hills Limited. The offence was allegedly committed on April 5, 2018. This is the same matter that saw Wanjigi on January 19 last year, presented before a Nairobi court for fraudulently acquiring the land where his business headquarters is built. In December 2021, Kinoti and his team had recommended that Wanjigi and his wife Irene Nzisa be charged for allegedly obtaining money by false pretence and conspiracy to defraud in a matter involving a Sh1.2 billion piece of land in Nairobi. Detectives from the Land Fraud Unit of the DCI on December 10 forwarded the inquiry file to the DPP with recommendations that Wanjigi and Nzisa, be charged with obtaining Sh56 million from a company by falsely pretending they were in a position to sell a piece of land on General Mathenge road in Westlands. Wanjigi's lawyer Willis Otieno, told the trial court that the High Court had issued orders stopping his client's arrest until the matter in the higher court was heard and determined. Otieno lauded the new decision by the DCI and DPP to drop charges against his client.

DPP, DCI in silent audit of Kinoti's decisions on land cases

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