Africa Spirit gates tampered with, court establishes
By People Team, July 22, 2020
A Nairobi court has established that one of the gates leading to the Africa Spirits Ltd liquor premises plant in Thika was tampered with.
Nairobi Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi visited the scene as part of the hearing into a Sh41 billion tax evasion case against billionaire Humphrey Kariuki and eight others.
The team, which included State Counsels and defense lawyers for the accused as well as Kenya Revenue officials, observed that the perimeter wall and electric fence around the property was intact except for electric wires at Gate ‘E’.
The seven wires on top of the right side of the 12-foot wide gate were hanging loose and some appeared to have been pulled out.
The gate leads to an open space adjacent to the liquor plant. At the main gate of the factory that sits on a 15-acre land, there was evidence of fresh welding on two metallic shutters while Gate ‘B’ also appeared to have been welded recently to block entrance.
Advocates Mwangi KM and Cecil Miller drew the attention of the court to the anomaly saying the tampered gate provides crucial evidence to claims by the defense that exhibits worth millions of shillings including alcohol and ethanol had secretly been ferried out from the plant that has been marked as a crime scene.
Addressing the court before leading the fact finding tour of the facility, Andayi who was accompanied by the investigating officer a Sang, said the aim was to make observations regarding the claims by the defence of scene tampering blamed on the police. – Reporting by Mathew Ndung’u, Oliver Musembi and KNA