This archive report was first published on 5 December 2019.
On September 6, 2019, Mombasa Principal Magistrate Edgar Kagoni was arrested in connection with the disappearance of narcotics worth Sh30,066,000. The arrest was made at the Port Police Station in Mombasa.
However, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) lost a bid to charge Kagoni over the loss of the narcotics in September 2019. In a ruling, Justice Reuben Nyakundi described the charges as 'misplaced' and ordered the DPP and Director of Criminal Investigation to pay Sh2 million damages for violating Kagoni's rights.
According to reports, Kagoni was arrested and detained at the Port Police Station in Mombasa before being taken to a court at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. His lawyers, Nelson Havi and Elisha Ongoya, argued that the law indemnified judges and magistrates from criminal and civil action for acts done in performance of their judicial functions.
Significantly, Kagoni had jailed Hussein Masoud Eid Bakari to 30 years and fined him Sh90 million on June 12, 2019, after finding him guilty of heroin possession. The judge ruled that it was disingenuous for the DPP and DCI to prosecute the magistrate for performing his judicial functions, especially since the narcotics vanished after Kagoni had concluded the trial.
