This archive report was first published on 10 September 2019.
On September 9, 2019, Principal Magistrate Edgar Kagoni spent the night in a police cell in Nairobi, despite a High Court order in Mombasa directing his release.
The High Court in Mombasa had blocked Kagoni's prosecution in connection with the disappearance of narcotics worth Sh30 million, following a successful application by his lawyers and the Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association (KMJA).
Justice Reuben Nyakundi had suspended Kagoni's intended prosecution pending the determination of a separate substantive application by KMJA, and ordered his release on a bond of Sh100,000 with a surety or an alternative cash bail of Sh20,000.
However, in Nairobi, Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina ruled that unless original copies of the orders granted in Mombasa were produced in court, Kagoni would remain in custody and be charged.
Onyina made the ruling after defence lawyers, led by Danstan Omari, applied to defer a plea on grounds that some lawyers were held up in Mombasa and were to arrive in Nairobi by the previous evening.
According to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Kagoni was arrested for the manner in which he handled the narcotics exhibits in the trial of Tanzanian Hussein Masoud Eid Bakari, who was jailed for 30 years and fined Sh90 million in June 2019.
