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Witness Contradicts Evidence in Case Against Judge
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 03 July 2007 04:19
Prof Chacha Nyaigoti Chacha denied ever being at the scene where Justice Mbaluto is said to have received a Sh60, 000 bribe.Chacha also defended the judge of impropriety, saying that he knew Justice Mbaluto as "a man of integrity who struck me as one who would not ask for a bag of millet as bribe".
Chacha was the principal of Egerton University's Kisii Campus when the complainant, Mr Sarara Matongo Sigore, claimed he saw the judge receive the bribe at Kisii Club.In a statement read from the Ringera report, that listed judges who were deemed to be corrupt, Chacha was said to have been with Sigore during the exchange.But Chacha said the statement was incorrect and went further to say that it was unusual for the judge to be at the club during working hours.
Sigore has testified at the tribunal and has said that it was during working hours when he saw the judge receive the bribe from a defendant in a case in which Sigore was an applicant.
"The judge was not there. We were friend and we would usually sit at the same table if we met in the club," Chacha told the tribunal.At the time, Sigore was Chacha's local chief. The witness told the court that he also knew Sigore as an agemate of his (Chacha's) father and according to Kuria traditions, he viewed Sigore as his father.
The witness also contradicted another claim made by Sigore who said that he was seated in the bar and could see the alleged exchange of bribe."It would not have been possible for someone sitting in the bar to see the inside of the dining hall," said Chacha.Sigore said that the judge had at first solicited for money and a bag of millet from him, which he allegedly failed to raise, before taking the Sh60, 000 from the defendant in the case.
