The office of the director of public prosecutions( ODPP) has distanced itself from senior police officers alleged to have pocketed kshs40,000 deposited as cash bail in assault case.
In a letter addressed to the alleged suspects’ lawyer,John Magiya the ODPP through Senior prosecution counsel Joseph Mwangi in his letter stated that although the two accused persons, Anne Kinanu and Emilio Fioravanti paid police bail at the Malindi police station, the prosecution was not privy.
“The prosecution cannot be called to intervene in a matter within the province of the police and the court and the court,l urge you to follow up with police ,”he stated.
The ODPP further wrote that the couple took the plea and the court failed to order for the cash bail to be deposited in court and as such the same remained with the police.
Two weeks ago the court had issued summons to Malindi Directorate of criminal investigations( DCI) boss to shed more light on the whereabouts of the missing money that had been deposited with the detectives in an assault case.
Malindi principal magistrate James Ong’ondo issued the summons to the DCI boss Stephen Ambani to appear and inform the court on the whereabouts of the missing ksh. 40,000 that had been deposited with police following the release of Anne Kinanu alongside Emilio Fioravanti to facilitate their release on police cash bail during their arrest.
The two had raised concerns with the magistrate on the missing money since it was never handed over to them following their plea taking three weeks ago.
According to the accused persons, the money had been deposited on October 10 last year however they were never issued with a receipt indicating acknowledgment of the money.
“Upon enquiring on why we cannot be issued with receipts,we were informed that it was during a public holiday and the police receipts were not available since the custodian who is the officcer commanding station was away,”they informed the court
They stated that they were threatened of being thrown into police cells ,if they enquired on receipts for the money they had paid for their release.
“We were informed that if we would not pay the money without receipts we would be thrown into police cells considering that it was on a holiday and we feared for our lives and parted with the money with no receipts,”said Kinanu.
The matter will be mentioned on Monday 8, July 2024 for hearing.
Written by: Peter Maseke