Willie Kimani court case delays were only beneficial to defense, LSK president says.

Tuesday, 7th February 2023

Delaying the Willie Kimani court case was beneficial only to the defense even though many other things came into play, according to the president of the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) Eric Theuri.

Theuri made the remarks in an interview on NTV on Monday morning, where he spoke extensively about the case that dragged on for more than six years.

“There are so many clever ways of trying to delay a criminal trial such as this because, you know the longer you delay a criminal trial, the more other factors come into play. Witnesses may – and its natural – some may die, some may forget, some may suffer fatigue. I think the advocates in these cases appeared in court for probably 200 appearances. When you look at all that, you see that it would only have benefitted the defense if these cases had delayed,” said Theuri.

The LSK president noted that delays in court cases were issues of concern for the society, but noted that a lot of factors come into play.

He acknowledged the huge number of cases that courts deal with as part of the reasons why some cases run for lengthy periods.

Theuri however pointed out that the Willie Kimani case provided valuable lessons for the legal profession on handling criminal cases effectively.

Asked how important forensics were to the prosecution of the case, Theuri said “extremely important.”

“Willie Kimani’s was among the first trials that brought into sharp focus the use of technology in the detection of crime,” he noted.

He said the prosecution had to rely on mobile phone data from a service provider in order to place the suspects in the crime scenes.

“In this trial, technology really played a big part in putting the pieces together,” he added.

The family and friends of Kimani, who was killed alongside his client Josephat Mwenda and driver Joseph Muiruri, found reprieve last week after Justice Jessie Lessit sentenced the four accused persons who had been found guilty.

Former police officer Fredrick Leliman, who was considered to be the mastermind of the gruesome murders, was sentenced to death. Two other officers, Stephen Lelei and Sylvia Wanjiku were sentenced to 30 years and 24 years in prison respectively.

A fourth convict, police informant Peter Ngugi was handed a 20 years prison sentence.