Meru Senator Mithika Linturi will not take a plea over alleged incitement charges after the prosecution failed to prefer charges against him within the allocated time.
In her ruling, Nakuru Chief Magistrate, Edna Nyaloti, noted that despite the court granting the State adequate time to conduct investigations, they failed to present formal charges against Linturi.
“This miscellaneous application is, therefore withdrawn, the file be closed and the cash bail be released,” the chief Magistrate ruled.
“On January 26, the DPP had not preferred any charges against Linturi and this court granted them a last adjournment to either charge the respondent or withdraw the application, which has not been done,” she added.
The magistrate directed that his cash bail be released back to the legislator.
The prosecution said they had withdrawn the miscellaneous applications as they await several areas to be covered by the investigating officer and charges to be preferred later.
The ODPP in a tweet said that they had returned the file to the NCIC to fill in the gaps in the case.
“ODPP will make the decision to charge once investigations are complete in the ethnic Contempt Case against Senator Linturi. ODPP returned the file to NCIC to cover outstanding investigation gaps before resubmission.”
Linturi’s defence team led by Elias Mutuma has welcomed the decision while castigating the prosecution team for what he called a waste of public resources.
Mutuma added that the decision has confirmed their fears that the case was politically-motivated and its intention was to silence his client.
“It might be over for the DPP but for us, we are just beginning, we have already launched a constitution petition in the Nakuru high court and the matter will come up for mention tomorrow before Justice Ngugi,” Mutuma said.
Among the things the defense wants to achieve is a declaration that the constitutional rights of the accused person, including the rights to freedom, dignity and economic rights were violated.
Linturi was arrested by detectives at Eka Hotel in Eldoret on January 9, 2022 over alleged utterances he made at a rally in Eldoret, and taken to Nakuru, Nairobi and back to Nakuru.