Questionable role of the DPP and DCI in land case

Trail of documents in the Guy Elm Spencer forgery cases shows that at various times, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the National Lands Commission (NLC) and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) stood by his side.

However, in a bizarre move, the three appear to have dumped him midway and left the courts to hunt for the truth in their possession.

In a September 21, 2015 letter to the DCI, the DPP flagged out gap in investigations that needed to be filed before prosecution could begin.

The DPP wondered why none of the claimants challenged the grant of probate obtained by the lawyer on December 30, 2013 and how the property could be bought directly from a man who had already granted power of attorney to his lawyer.

The DP also doubted whether the photo in the conveyance document to the benefit of businesswoman Agnes Kagure represented the true likeness of the deceased as at 2011.

“It cannot even be compared to the one on his passport or the one used when opening the bank account,” a letter from Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Mutuku said.

The DPP questioned police failure to record statements from crucial people and how the Sh100 million cash was transferred to Roger.

“There is no paper trail of how money was paid and from where it was obtained by D1 (Kagure). It is uncommon to transfer such large amount by cash. The source of this amount is also in question since D1 claims to be an insurance agent,” Mutuku said.

He also questioned the purchase price of Sh100 million for five acres describing it as “atrociously deflated.” More or less similar situation obtains with regard to NLC. A February 8, 2017 report prepared by the commission concluded that Roger’s estate was being targeted by fraudsters working with influential people in government in an elaborate scheme involving the police, office of DPP, Ministry of Lands and county officials.

“This can be explained and confirmed by the inaction of the police on the several reported cases of similar nature especially in Nairobi involving land in prime zones,” the report by Antipas Nyanjwa, the Deputy Director, Investigations and Forensic Services at NLC stated.

In his recommendation, Nyanjwa wanted the report shared with the NLC chairman and the Lands CS for them to “come up with a permanent solution to this menace fast gaining ground as forceful takeover of private property and cannot and should not be entertained in a functional government.”

The NLC report, forwarded to law firm of Raffman Dhanji Elms & Virdee Advocates by CEO Tom Aziz Chavangi has been tabled in court together with forensic audit of transactions.

“The disputed signatures (selling the properties) are all forgeries as they fundamentally differ in all the characteristics from Roger’s style of writing. His name has even wrong spelling on his letter of resignation which is unusual.”

Despite all this, the DPP eventually charged the man with the same police claims and before most of these questions could be answered only a day after Mutuku wrote a letter to DCI reminding them to carry “further investigations as earlier directed.”