Masengeli’s stalemate with the High Court Judge, Justice Lawrence Mugambi, has finally crossed to the end of the tunnel after several attempts to meet the judge materialized today.
A battle of justice and respect for the rule of law that almost ended Masengeli’s brief career as the Acting Inspector General of Police in jeopardy seems to have ended today., a position he held following the resignation of Japheth Koome.
Masengeli requested to appear before Mugambi through his legal team to apologize for snubbing multiple summonses. His attempt to avert the 6-month sentence was rejected by the appellate court earlier this week.
“I apologize to the court for the events that have transpired leading to the orders of this court. My lord, I respect you for the good work that you do to uphold the rule of law. I pray that this court accepts my apology,” he said.
On his side, Mugammbi stated that “the intention of the court was not to punish Masengeli for the sake of it but to ensure that the sentence restores the dignity and the authority of this court.”
According to Masengeli, he was not able to appear before the judge due to a security assessment he was conducting in the North Eastern and Coastal regions at the time. He, however, maintained that he was represented through his legal team and DIG, whom he sent on the last day.
The Attorney General, Dorcas Oduor, while appearing in court today for the first time to support Masengeli’s plea also reiterated his aforementioned statements. She, however, clashed with Nelson Havi, who objected to AG’s statement regarding the interference with the judge.
“It has been wildly but incorrectly alleged that the summonses issued by the court were either ignored or defied Gilbert Masengeli. This is further from the truth because every time his attendance was required, he was disabled from doing so by pressing exigencis of duty out of Nairobi,” AG Dorcas Oduor said.
Mugambi said that Masengeli’s answers appeared genuine after his observation and advocates’ cross-examination.
“Masengeli was cross-examined by advocates, and my observation is that his answers appeared genuine. This court is convinced that Masengeli regrets and is generally remorseful for the situation in which he finds himself,” he said.
“Masengeli, through this purging process, has purged his guilt for the contempt of court, and thus both the conviction and sentence passed are set aside. I am making my decision to rescue myself from further proceedings in this case for personal reasons,” he added.
Masengeli was convicted for contempt of court order and later sentenced to six months in prison, a sentence that Mugambi said he could avert if he appeared before the court within one week.
He was required to answer for the Kitengela three, who were allegedly abducted by police officers on August 19th, 2024. He, however, snubbed seven summonses, which attracted six months of jail time.
Fortunately, the three, Bob Njagi, Jamil Longton, and his brother Aslam Longton, were found alive today. They were allegedly dumbed by captors early on Friday morning in Kiambu County, in the Thogoto and Gachie areas.
Source: The National Insight and CitizenTV
