Kiambu Principal Magistrate Brian Khaemba is on the spot over corruption allegations after he issued Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu and a county government employee Faith Njeri Harrison with anticipatory bail of Sh500, 000 on Thursday last week.
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has written to the Judicial Service Commission calling for investigation of Khaemba’s conduct that led to release of embattled Waititu who is accused of swindling county funds and diverting them to personal and family projects.
Khaemba reportedly issued Waititu the bail after he was detained by detectives for allegedly irregularly awarding tenders worth Sh588 million to companies associated with him and his immediate family members.
According to EACC, Khaemba was on sick off raising questions why he only appeared in court to hear the matter only.
“The commission has received credible information that the said Brian Khaemba was on sick off on May 23 and he only appeared in court to hear the application, thereafter, he left the station to continue with his off duty,” he said.
The EACC boss claims the magistrate could be having interest in the matter, as there were other judicial officers who would have handled the matter as well.
This is not the first time Khaemba has been on the spot for issuing controversial rulings.
Early this year, the magistrate ruled that drinking under the influence of alcohol in itself is not an offence.
He made the ruling following a case where a driver, Michael Ngobe Mugo, was charged with the offence of drink driving.
During the hearing, a police officer testified that the accused overpowered him and two of his colleagues and as a result they were unable to arrest him.
The witty magistrate is also a darling of fellow magistrates and judges.
In 2015, he was re-elected as the secretary general of the Kenya Magistrates and Judges Association without having campaigned for the seat.
“I am truly humbled. They elected me while on a wheelchair and I never campaigned because of my long confinement at Nairobi Hospital,” he wrote in Facebook after his re-election.
Friends and colleagues of Magistrate Khaemba describe him as an official who is not afraid to push things to the farthest limit.
The anticipatory orders came just hours after EACC raided Waititu’s homes on Kiambu Road and Garden Estate seeking to recover documents linking him with tender irregularities for five hours in a day full of drama.
The governor is also being probed for alleged questionable expenditure for, among other things, the controversial Kaa Sober programme, which cost more than Sh2 million per day, without the County Assembly’s approval, contrary to the Public Finance Management Act.
Meanwhile, Mbarak has said there are no sacred cows in the ongoing war against graft.
In an apparent reference to county governors’ demands for special treatment when their cases come up before the commission, EACC said the agency will execute its mandate without paying regard to suspects’ status in society.
The Council of Governors came out guns blazing on Monday this week to condemn the manner in which Waititu was frog-matched to Integrity Center for questioning by detectives at the anti-graft agency EACC.
In its protest against arrests made in the glare of cameras, the governors’ council demanded that its members be treated with decorum owing to their positions.
While calling for honourable arrests, CoG Chairman Wycliffe Oparanya said “Why can’t they have decency? Just summon the Governor, tell him you wish to go to his house for a search instead of all these dramas in front of the media,”.
But Twalib maintains suspects will be treated equally when they appear before the commission until they clear their names.
“A criminal suspect is a criminal suspect, no special treatment,” Mbarak said.