Court rejects recusal bid in city politician Francis Mureithi’s Sh320million fraud Suit
The Sh320million tender fraud suit against city Politician Francis Mureithi and his associate Francis Mwaura will continue after the court rejected recusal bid by a complainant.
The court poured cold water to an application to have the presiding Magistrate Robinson Ondiek recuse himself from the case saying that it has never kicked off since 2016.
When the matter came for ruling on Tuesday this week, November 25, 2025 the magistrate declined to recuse himself from the matter.
In the case, the duo are said to have defrauded an Eritrean Sh300million between April and November 2016.
According to documents filed in court, Mureithi is said to have told the complainant, Haile Menkerios, a retired United Nations (UN) diplomat that he would help him secure a tender at the Department of Defence (DoD) headquarters for the supply of foodstuff.
According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Mureithi issued the foreigner with a Local Purchase Order (LPO) to supply sugar, maize, rice and beans to the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF).
As a result, Mureithi, through his then company Doc Find Ltd, together with other proxy companies obtained a total of Sh320million.
The other companies have been identified as Wina Trading Ltd, New Research Path Company, Hammond Agencies and Sembel Trading.
The money was wired to the companies’ accounts on diverse dates between April 29 and November 3, 2016, by Menkerios who is a retired Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UN office of the Africa Union in Addis Ababa.
“We launched investigations and established that the complainant was indeed swindled of the cash on the pretext that he was able to secure more contracts,” Chebii told the court.
Mureithi unsuccessfully contested for the Embakasi East parliamentary seat.
