Haji says no proof judge plotted to kill Cohen

The late businessman Tob Cohen. [Courtesy]

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji has now disclosed reasons he declined to charge Court of Appeal judge Sankale ole Kantai over the murder of businessman Tob Cohen.

In papers filed before the High Court, Haji says after reviewing the file forwarded by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), he established that the evidence gathered by detectives amounted to suspicions and assumptions but had nothing to place the judge in the murder plot.

“It was evident that no inference of guilt could be drawn against the petitioner herein as the circumstantial evidence did not satisfy the requisite requirement and consequently, the same could not form the basis of preferring criminal charges against the petitioner,” says Deputy DPP Victor Mule.

Mule, in an affidavit sworn on behalf of Haji, said the DCI had initially submitted two files and wanted Sarah Wairimu, the businessman’s widow, to be charged alongside the judge.

This was in February last year. He says the ODPP returned the file to the DCI, recommending that they seal gaps he had identified within 14 days before a conclusive decision could be made. The ODPP returned the file on March 17, 2020.

The DPP says the DCI did not return the file as had been directed, despite several reminders to do so, leading him to use the evidence submitted to him by DCI on December 2, 2020, when it said it had covered all the areas that were required.

Mule’s reply is in relation to an allegation by Senior Assistant Inspector General of Police John Gachomo who claimed that DCI had evidence against the senior judge but the DPP alongside judges and lawyers conspired to protect him.

The DCI officer claims that Kantai constantly communicated with Cohen’s widow six hours after his murder.

“One of the communication calls between the petitioner and Sarah Wairimu Kamotho lasted six minutes. The late Tob Cohen was murdered about six hours after this suspicious communication,” says Gachomo.

The officer states that on the material night, the judge was around Chiromo Campus instead of his house in Karen.

But the DPP says DCI did not prove that the communication between the judge and Cohen’s widow was to plot the murder.