A case where a Somali national is charged with assault was Wednesday moved to Friday after his new lawyer made an application to familiarize himself with the matter.
Abdihakim Saidi Jama had appeared before Makadara senior principal magistrate Hellen Onkwani for the hearing of a case he is charged with allegedly assaulting his former employer.
According to the charge sheet the accused committed the offense on October 19, 2021.
The accused at Amaco Plaza in Eastleigh, Nairobi he unlawfully assaulted Ayni Hussein Muhammud thereby occasioning her actual bodily harm.
The prosecution side had protested in court over regular change of defense lawyers in the case terming them a tactic to delay the case and defeat justice.
“Your honor the other time there was a different lawyer claiming to represent the accused and asking for adjournment. Today another one has come again claiming to be holding brief for another one and we think this is a ploy to delay the case,” said the prosecution side.
The Magistrate who had ruled that the hearing of the case would go on, adjourned it to Friday when lawyer Samson Nyaberi, the third lawyer and new to the case appeared as the case was about to begin submissions and made an application to have it adjourned as he familiarizes with the case.
“Your honor I am new to the case however I represent the accused in another matter at Milimani Law Court and I need to understand the case well by reading the charge sheet before I propose on way forward,” he said.
His attempt to have the case done after Friday November 24 claiming that he had another matter in Kilifi involving the controversial Pastor Paul Mackenzie over Shakahola killings was not granted as the magistrate stated that the hearing will go on and if the lawyer is not satisfied he has a 14 days to appeal the decision.
Three witnesses had been lined up to give their evidence before the case was closed.
Those expected to give their witnesses were the doctor who treated the complainant, the investigating officer and the arresting officer.
In the case Ayni who is a British national of Somali origin reported that Jama, who was her employee, tried to steal her business in Eastleigh in 2020.
This was during the Covid-19 pandemic that forced her to be out of the country for long.
She told police that she sent clothes from London and China to her three shops in Eastleigh as stock, and even had the ability to monitor the business remotely through CCTV.
“My world came crashing down when I discovered that my trusted business worker had registered the three shops under his own name, disregarding our previous communication,” Ayni says in a police report.
She instead sought assistance from the local business community and elders in reclaiming her business, which she had worked hard to build.
After hearing both parties’ arguments, the community and elders decided to divide the three shops between them, insisting that Ayni surrender one of the shops to her employee.
She did not agree to the suggestion claiming that she had single-handedly stocked the shop, paid rent, and covered other workers’ salaries.
When she came to Kenya she told police that she faced harassment from the accused who even made her to be arrested and placed in police custody.
Jama is out on a cash bail of Sh50,000.
In Milimani court the accused is facing another charge of fraudulently obtaining a Kenyan National Identity Card.
He was charged on July 11, 2023 when he appeared before Milimani principal magistrate Zainab Abdul and pleaded not guilty to the charge of obtaining registration by false pretense contrary to section 320 of the Penal Code.
The prosecution stated that between March 1, 2011 and June 3, 2011 while in Isiolo within Isiolo County Jama jointly with others not before court, willfully procured a Kenyan National Identity Card number in the name of Abdihakim Saidi Jama by falsely pretending that he were the son of Fatuma Mohamed of Kenyan National Identity Card a fact he knew to be false.
The magistrate released him on a cash bail of Sh30,000 plus two contact persons.
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