City lawyer denies dumping Sh850 at Uhuru’s office
A renowned lawyer has been arraigned for allegedly throwing a wooden box with Sh850 coins at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Harambee House offices.
Mr James Njonjo Mue, a human rights activist, appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot on Thursday.
He denied charges of offensive conduct and flying the flag without authority.
The Alliance High School alumnus was accused of throwing a wooden box containing the coins while driving his vehicle, a Toyota Rav4.
FLEW FLAG WITHOUT PERMISSION
The prosecution told the court that he unlawfully flew the flag on his vehicle without permission from the interior ministry. He was accused of committing the said offenses last month with an intent to provoke breach of peace.
“On May 10, at Harambee House along Harambee Avenue, the accused used threatening behaviour, namely throwing a wooden box containing coins,” court was told.
He was arrested on Wednesday and was held in police cells before being presented in court on Thursday.
The magistrate freed him on a Sh200,000 personal bond. He also ordered for the release of his vehicle, which was being held by the police as an exhibit.
This is not the first time Mr Mue has found himself in soup for acting in a dramatic manner deemed offensive. In 1997, he is remembered for joining other activists at Uhuru Park to demand for a new constitution ahead of the elections.
On that day, as police tear-gassed everyone, he was left kneeling down, praying and singing the National Anthem.
JURIST OF THE YEAR
He was named jurist of the year in 2000 at the age of 33, making him the youngest lawyer recipient of that award.
He is also remembered as the man who in 2004 went up the walls of Parliament and striped a Cabinet minister’s limousine of a flag to symbolically demonstrate the government’s loss of moral authority to govern after the Anglo-leasing scandal, and the decision by MPs to increase their salaries.
At the time, he allegedly slapped an assistant minister in the process before he was arrested and charged with creating disturbance.
And when he was arraigned in court before a magistrate in Kibera, he stunned everyone by singing the whole national anthem.
The magistrate ordered that he be subjected for a psychiatric test but he instead lectured the court on how it is considered normal for local leaders in power to act with impunity at the expense of the public.
He explained that nothing was being done about it and that he asked to be rightly called mad for seeing that something was wrong.
His current case will be heard on July 26.