Court sentencing of KTDA officials sets precedent for contempt

Six senior KTDA officers jailed for disobeying court orders

On Thursday, the court of appeal set a good precedent on how each person should honour court orders by jailing six Kenyans.

Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) officicials were sentenced to seven months.

They are Kennedy Omanga, Francis Macharia, Peter Kinyua, Eston Gakunga Gikore, Lerionka Tiamapati, Stephen Maina Githiga.

This came despite the six having filed an urgent application before the Supreme Court to stay their sentencing.

They had pleaded with the Court of Appeal judges to suspend mitigation and sentencing on the basis of the filed application to stay finalization of the contempt proceedings.

However on Thursday, a three-judge bench comprising of William Ouko, Fatuma Sichale and John Otieno Odek ordered that they pay a fine of Ksh.400,000 or serve the seven months in jail.

The six had been found guilty of contempt of court after they were accused of proceeding with an election at the Kiiru Tea Factory which had been stopped.

They allegedly interfered with the leadership and management of the 8,000-member factory team in Murang’a County.

They are accused of orchestrating the removal of KTDA chairman Geoffrey Kirundi and company secretary Bernard Kiragu on November 27, 2017, against express court orders that barred them pending completion of a leadership wrangles court suit.

Do you think the same law should apply to the big fish, who have shown no regard for court orders?

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