Kapseret Member of Parliament Oscar Sudi has for the second time lost an application to stop his prosecution over accusations of forging academic certificates.
Sudi, an ardent ally of Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto was accused of forging academic certificates while seeking clearance at the IEBC to contest in the March 4, 2013 General Election.
In July 2017, the High Court dismissed Sudi’s plea which sought to stop his prosecution saying that the prosecution did not in any way violate his rights as he claimed.
The Court of Appeal on Thursday, May 20, in what appeared to be the final nail on Sudi’s case again refused to grant his plea to have the case dropped.
It said the lawmaker does not appear to challenge the criminal case but was angry about the constitutionality of the charges leveled against him.
Court of Appeal judges William Ouko, Wanjiru Karanja and Asike Makhandia said the proceedings are not the subject of the appeal before the court.
“The subject of the appeal is the High Court’s judgement dated July 24, 2017 which dismissed the applicant’s constitutional petition,
“As such we have no powers to stay the criminal proceedings in the chief magistrate’s court,” the judges said.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission noted that already seven out of 14 witnesses have testified.
Kivumbi.co.ke understands that Sudi is not the first MP facing charges of fake academic papers.
His Tanga Tanga counterpart Didmus Barasa is also under the radar over his academic papers.
The Director of Criminal Investigation while confirming to be investigating Barasa’s academic papers noted that several of the legislators acaemic papers are questionable.
