7 Homa Bay MCAs charged with assault, remanded in Custody for 14 days.

 Seven MCAs from Homa Bay County Assembly appearing before Kisumu Court charged with Assault and Malicious damage to property.They denied the charges and have been remanded for 14 day at Kodiaga prisons-Photo By Dickson Odhiambo

By Dickson Odhiambo

November 16, 2018.

7 Homa Bay MCAs charged with assault, remanded in Custody for 14 days.

SEVEN Members of the County Assembly of Homa bay have today been arraigned before a Kisumu Court Charged with Assault and Malicious damage to property.

The seven have been charged before Kisumu Resident Magistrate Rose Ndombi where they have denied the charges.

They have been charged with assaulting Homa Bay County Assembly Speaker Elizabeth Ayoo.

Those charged are Peter Kaula, Julius Gaya, Evans Dada Marieba,Dan Were,Paul Ongoro,Walter Muok and Philemon Onditi who have all denied the charges.

The court has denied all the accused persons bail and ordered that they be detained for 14 days so as to allow prosecution to complete investigations into the matter.

The court further ordered that they be remanded at Kodiaga Prisons in Kisumu to avoid interfering with the investigations.

This is after their three lawyers James Mwamu, Ken Omollo and Sam Onyango applied for the bail unsuccessfully while arguing that their clients are MCAs and not likely to jump bond or cash bail.

Lawyer Mwamu questioned why prosecution wanted to detain their clients for 14 days yet it has a whole one month to carry out their investigations, adding that the prosecution do not need one month to do an investigation in an assault case.

Court Prosecutor Lazarus Sirtui objected the bail application by the accused persons’ lawyers while arguing that they should be held for 14 days to allow the investigations be fully completed.

However while delivering the ruling, Resident Magistrate Rose Ndombi said the court has considered the arguments by the two parties, adding that the role of the court is to do justice and ensure it is served.

“The reason given so far by the prosecution that the accused person would interfere with investigation is valid hence the denial of the bail,” the Magistrate said.

On Thursday this week, two MCAs namely Walter Muok and Julius Gaya were arrested by the police in Homa Bay and the duo spent the night in a police custody while their five colleagues joined them in Kisumu today morning where they were taken to court.

On October 16 this year, chaos erupted at the county assembly of Homa bay where a section of MCAs allegedly kicked and boxed the County Assembly Speaker Elizabeth Ayoo while accusing her of being biased in her duties and favoring a faction allied to MCAs Richard Ogindo.

The situation forced the County assembly security officials to intervene and whisked the Speaker away from the Assembly to her office.

Homa Bay County Assembly speaker later recorded a statement with the police at the Nyanza regional police headquarters in Kisumu.

ENDS: