A Nairobi High Court on Friday charged embattled former Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario with six counts of corruption charges in the 2016 Rio Olympics scandal involving Sh55 million.
Wario, who is Kenya’s Ambassador to Austria, denied six charges related to corruption and abuse of office when he was arraigned before Nairobi Magistrate Douglas Ogoti at the Milimani Law courts.
He was charged alongside two other former sports officials Haron Komen, who served as Director of Administration and Patrick Nkabu who was in charge of finance. They all denied charges and freed on a Sh1 million cash bail each.
Wario asked the court to release his passport for him to return to Austria to carry out his ambassadorial duties pending the pretrial conference in November 22, but the prosecution said he stands suspended after taking plea.
Athletics legend Kipchoge Keino was not in court after police decided to use him as a prosecution witness against Wario and the other officials charged with mismanaging funds that were meant for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
His lawyer Cecil Miller told the court that his client was given a free bond to enable the prosecution review issues he raised in a new statement showing he was not directly responsible in signing any documents.
Keino and Wario had been out of the country until Thursday morning when they surrendered to police as directed last week when former Sports Principal Secretary Richard Titus Ekai and two others were charged over the scandal and freed on a cash bail of Sh1 million each.