Gachagua to Appeal High Court Ruling to Forfeit Sh200 Million to Gov’t, Says the Judge was Biased

Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua has instructed his attorneys to file an appeal against a High Court judgment ordering him to forfeit Sh200 million to the government.

In a social media post on Thursday, Gachagua said the ruling by Justice Esther Maina did not come as a surprise to him and his lawyers, adding that the judge was biased from the word go and “threw caution to the wind by conducting a sham trial.”

He further claimed that the judge refused their application to cross-examine the investigator in order to test the veracity of his allegations in violation of the rules of evidence.

“She ruled that all evidence should be through affidavits and rejected oral evidence. She refused my request to call witnesses to testify on how I got my money,” he wrote.

“The judge again declined our request to highlight our submissions against the known and accepted practice all over the world…She has made a ruling relying solely on the allegations by the State without giving us an opportunity to put the allegations to test as per the known practice all over the world.”

Gachagua, who is the UDA party presidential running mate in the August 9th elections, added that the judgment was hastily rushed 10 days before the elections in a futile attempt to undermine his candidature in the coming elections and dent his sterling performance in the Deputy Presidential debate last week.

“I have instructed my Lawyers to immediately file an appeal in the Court of Appeal to stay the orders and set aside the judgment,” said Gachagua.

On Thursday, Justice Maina ruled that the first-term MP failed to explain and prove how he obtained the funds from government agencies.

"Indeed he admitted he received from government agencies...there was nothing to show of the contract has had been awarded a tender by that ministry...," judge Maina ruled.

Justice Maina noted that there was no evidence that Gachagua executed the contract in order to obtain the funds. The court further rejected the argument that the Sh200 was in a fixed account.

The money held in three bank accounts at Rafiki Microfinance Bank was frozen in 2020 following an application filed by the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) which argued that Gachagua could not explain the source of the funds. One of the accounts is holding Sh165 million while the other two have Sh35 million and Sh773,228 respectively.