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Activist who corrupted the title of book on Uhuru’s speeches freed on bond


The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) failed to secure custodial orders against activist Mutemi Kiama who changed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s biography and referred to the president as a criminal.

Kiama was instead freed by Senior Principal Magistrate Boaz Ombewa of Kibera Law Courts on Sh50,000 bond and ordered to be appearing before the DCI’s Special Service Unit’s Nairobi regional offices as and when required during investigations.

‘MY LIFE IN CRIME’

The activist is accused of changing the book’s title from Uhuru Kenyatta: Legacy of Democracy and Development to Uhuru Kenyatta My Life in Crime before publishing its extracts on social media.

Uhuru Kenyatta: Legacy of Democracy and Development, authored by Prof Peter Kagwanja, is a collection of selected speeches by President Kenyatta during his first term of office.

He was picked up by the SSU detectives from his house on Tuesday night and locked up at the Capitol Hill police station.

Kiama had appeared to be winning against the DCI on Wednesday morning after the office of Director of Public Prosecutions at the Milimani Law Courts declined an application.

Detective corporal Julio Mutembei of SSU had prepared an affidavit to support his application to detain Kiama for five days.

CRIMINAL CHARGES

But the ODPP refused to commission his application because the ongoing investigations will not precipitate criminal charges against the activist.

The detective returned Kiama to the SSU Nairobi regional offices before proceeding to Kibera Law Courts for the second attempt.

Nairobi SSU boss Pius Gitari said Mutembei had taken the miscellaneous application to the wrong court because it was to be filed at the Kibera Law Courts.

Gitari said they did not intend to have Kiama in custody because his phones and laptop have already been recovered by SSU.

“We don’t have anything personal. We didn’t wish to detain him because that is also another burden,” Gitari said.

In the rejected affidavit, Mutembei had claimed that Kiama has on several occasions used social media to mislead and assassinate the character of different individuals.

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

He averred that Kiama’s remarks have been causing a lot of anguish to the individuals with or without their knowledge and the frequent publications have cost the character of the involved individuals.

“In this particular matter, the respondent has intruded into the field of publishers and authors of different books. The respondent has gone further to re-editing edited and published by Prof Peter Kagwanja,” the affidavit stated in part.

“The respondent (Kiama) has introduced other words digitally to read ‘Uhuru Kenyatta – My life in crime’. By introducing the words to the title was done in bad faith and without the authority of the publisher.”

Mutembei said the respondent appears to have worked with other cartels still at large.

The detective said there are more forensic investigations that require to be carried out in connection with the act and the matter would involve other editors of the book that may not be practical to get due to limitation of time.