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Eight land fraud suspects will know their fate on Monday.This is after the police requested the court to grant them more time to complete investigations.
DCI officer Nicolous Osuri, attached to the Land Fraud Unit appeared before the Milimani Senior Principal magistrate Robinson Ondieki with an application for more two weeks.
The eight, Two senior lands officials ,a police officer , a hotelier and land brokers had on Tuesday (April1,2025) been detained for interrogation over the manufacturing of fake land title documents.
According to Osuri, 10 days granted earlier by principal magistrate Rose Ndombi were not enough since the investigations has led to further interrogation and other potential witnesses who need to be reached out.
The officer indicated that, the investigation has taken another turn after revealing forgeries of seals and stamps from the judiciary.
While convincing the magistrate to grant more days, Osuri said that they have contacted 153 potential witnesses who have fallen as victims in the fake titles syndicate and need to record their statements,
“Your honour we have contacted 153 potential witnesses who we need them to record their statements. They came from different counties and more time will be required to finalize,” Osuri told the court.
The allegedly forged documents recovered have got their details and they will be needed to record their statements to furtherance investigations.
In their bid to haste investigations, the applicant has deployed some of the officers out of station to help in the task, record the statements and collect more evidence.
Further the new recovery has revealed the court’s forged seals and stamps from the magistrate courts, Land Division and and also the High Courts.
The officer stated that they have not verified the same to confirm their authenticity.
He also said that he is yet to receive the DCI Digital Forensic Investigations Unit analysis reports on on submitted one laptop, 8 mobile phones, one monitor and 3 CPU from.the forensic examiners.
On Thursday, the officer received a report from the Government Printer on the recovered land and conveyance documents and Green Cards some of which are genuine and others are not. The same need to be verified and the applicant was referred to the State Department for Lands and physical planning for authentication.
The intelligence further indicates that, the lives of the applicants may be in danger of the aggrieved and agitated persons which need to be protected through continued detention.
Defense lawyers led by Felix Keaton and vehemently opposed the application citing that it lacks merit and should be dismissed,
“Your honor the respondents herein have been in custody for two weeks, the period given to the applicant to conduct Investigations. It’s absurd the same officer pleading for more days an action that tend to infringe the rights of the respondent,” Keaton submitted.
The suspects were allegedly involved in forgeries of some state department of Lands and Physical Planning under the Ministry of lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Developments documents which includes , letters of allotments, deed plans, certificates of titles, certificates of leases, transfer of land documents, indentures among others,”Ms Ndombi was told by the prosecution.
