BY JOE MODIE
Just like Justice Juma Chitembwe regretted inviting former Nairobi governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko to his house, he is probably also regretting why he went to KTN studios to defend himself against corruption allegations.
In all honesty, he should have waited out the Sonko tapes so that he goes to defend himself when he is sure the impeached governor had exhausted his dirty tricks arsenal.
Many of his talking points, from the interview with Sophia Wanuna, have since been neutralised by subsequent videos leaked by Sonko.
Sonko must have been chuckling to himself as he was watching an uneasy Chitembwe defend himself on TV, knowing very well that he had videos that would make Chitembwe eat his own words.
Disowned the man
In his defence, Chitembwe practically disowned the man known as Amana Jirani (Mwajirani).
While he said that he only knows Jirani by virtue of the fact that they both hail from the same village in Kwale, the videos say otherwise.
It is clear that the two are more than casual acquaintances. Chitembwe and Jirani do ‘business’ together. Everything motor mouth Jirani says about his interactions with Chitembwe checks out in subsequent leaks.
A good example is the Cecil Miller/Aggrey Muchelule affair. How can Chitembwe disown Jirani, yet the man is heard and seen interceding on behalf of Miller, only for Chitembwe to take it up with Justice Muchelule.
Paints himself as the whistleblower
No matter how Chitembwe denied it, Sonko was also deeply involved in the monkey business, only that he now turns around and tries to paint himself as the whistle-blower.
It is clear that Sonko knows only too well where the sh5 million bribe that was supposed to bribe Muchelule came from and that he was the conduit.
In the latest video Sonko is heard telling Chitembwe ‘mimi nilijitoa kwa hiyo maneno’. Well, you cannot ‘remove’ yourself from a particular situation if you were not part of the same.
At the beginning of this video, Sonko, Jirani, and an identified woman, can be seen planning how the bribe money would be delivered to Chitembwe, who would in turn take it to Muchelule.
Who is recording
Since we have now learnt that secret camera work is done via googles, it is the woman who is recording the planning meeting.
Much later, the woman turns up at Chitembwe’s office where they engage in a lengthy back and forth on how the money will be delivered to Muchelule’s office.
The woman tells Chitembwe how she has been put in a difficult position and how she even had a runny stomach. She is the one recording.
The woman, in a lengthy detour, makes it clear to Chitembwe that she wants to witness the funds being handed over to Muchelule, but the judge is not keen on taking that route.
The deal
At some point, he gets impatient and accuses the woman of not trusting him enough to carry out the deal.
The woman stubbornly stands her ground and Chitembwe yields to her demands.
The two are seen walking along the corridors up to Muchelule’s chambers, where a brief introduction is done, before detectives storm into the office.
The woman is accompanied by two female cops into Muchelule’s toilet, where upon being searched, wads of cash are removed from her handbag.
Asked where the she had gotten the money from, she kept muttering “Haki wataniua.” She is later heard asking to be provided with a lawyer.
Broken no law
The scene soon shifts back to Muchelule’s chambers where a search is mounted and not cash is found. Asked what she was doing with the money in her handbag, the woman retorts that she has broken no law.
This arrest, dear reader, is the one that was heavily covered on TV, on July 22. From the High Court, the two judges were taken to DCI headquarters on Kiambu Road, where they were interrogated for a number of hours.
Shortly thereafter, the Kenya Association of Magistrates and Judges obtained a court order barring DCI from investigating, arresting or preferring any charges against the two.
Decided to leave
In his defence at the time, Chitembwe said he had left his chambers and went to Justice Muchelule’s chamber so that they could go for tea at Milimani High Court’s fourth floor but Muchelule informed him that he had already had tea and he decided to leave.
He added that after conducting a search at Justice Muchelule’s office, which yielded nothing, the officers sneaked in an unidentified lady who they took to the judge’s toilet to search and returned saying they had recovered $50,000 (Sh5.5 million) from her.
When he made his defence at the time of the arrest, Chitembwe did not realise that the whole episode was being recorded as the recording made available by Sonko contradicts his assertions about going for tea and officers sneaking in the woman into Muchelule’s office.
It now gets clearer why the woman insisted on being there when Muchelule was being given the money; she was under strict instructions to record it on camera. This, without a doubt, was a sting operation and Sonko was deeply involved.