On November 20, 2018, Kibwezi West MP Patrick Musimba and his wife Angela Mwende moved to the High Court seeking softer bond terms in the Sh1.1 billion Chase Bank theft case.
The couple also wants the court to lift the order that requires them to deposit their passports, saying the restriction is unnecessary and disruptive. Through their lawyer Steve Kimathi, they asked for bond conditions similar to those granted to their co-accused.
Kimathi told the court there was no compelling basis to keep the passports. He argued that the pair were not flight risks, saying they appeared in court after seeing on social media that warrants of arrest had been issued against them.
Musimba, Mwende and the other accused are facing conspiracy to steal and money laundering charges. The prosecution says Sh1,150,125,587 was siphoned from depositors’ accounts and moved to accounts at Paramount Universal and Kenya Commercial Banks between January 2015 and March 2016.
In one of the money laundering counts, the MP and his wife are accused of taking Sh409,682,900 from an account and transferring it to an account at KCB’s Kipande Branch.
The couple denied the charges before senior resident magistrate Hellen Okwani on September 20, 2018. They were then released on different bond and bail terms from those imposed on their co-accused.
The other accused persons — former Chase Bank chairman Mohamed Khan, Dancun Kabui, James Mwenja, Makrios Agumbi, Luciane Sunter and Ronald Vlasman — were each released on a Sh10 million bond with sureties of similar amounts, or an alternative cash bail of Sh2 million.
Musimba, however, was ordered to provide an additional bond of Sh30 million and two sureties of the same amount for each of his companies, Porting Access Limited and Itec Limited, or pay an alternative cash bail of Sh5 million for each company.
The MP is opposing the variation of those terms. Before Justice Grace Ngenye, Kimathi said the Criminal Procedure Code does not spell out what should happen when a company is charged with an offence.
He argued that a company is a separate legal person from its directors and shareholders, with its own liabilities and responsibilities. He added that a corporate body cannot be arrested, jailed or sentenced to prison, and can only be fined.
Kimathi also said the court should have first established that Musimba was acting as a representative of the company before taking his plea. He further told the court that the passport order could interfere with the MP’s work because he often has to travel at short notice.
Musimba sits on the National Assembly’s Intellectual Property and ICT committees, while his wife is a director of Eco Bank. Kimathi said both of them are required to travel frequently.
State counsel Carol Sigei opposed the application, saying Musimba was charged as an individual and not in his capacity as an MP. She maintained that the bond terms were set to match the seriousness of the charges.
Justice Ngenye was set to rule on the application on November 28, 2018.
