Moi must testify - judges
2004-11-27 21:39
Nairobi - A Kenyan High Court has ordered retired president Daniel Arap Moi to testify before a judicial committee probing a financial scam that robbed taxpayers of huge amounts of money, according to a ruling seen by AFP on Saturday.
A three-judge bench on Friday ordered Moi, who ruled Kenya for 24 years until his retirement in December 2002, his two former vice presidents and six others, to appear before a commission probing the so-called Goldenberg affair, a fictitious export scheme which cost Kenyans anything from hundreds of millions to around three billion dollars.
The Goldenberg International company is accused of receiving payments for diamond and gold exports during Moi's rule under a government scheme designed to revitalise Kenya's faltering economy in the early 1990s by offering exporters a premium to repatriate their hard currency earnings.
Goldenberg's boss Kamlesh Pattni claimed his company was processing gold and diamonds for export, and struck an agreement that allowed Goldenberg to earn up to 35% compensation for the exported minerals.
But Kenya produces little gold and no diamonds.
According to an article in London's Financial Times newspaper last year, former politicians and civil servants who collaborated with Goldenberg pocketed up to one billion dollars through the scam.
After being elected in December 2002 on an anti-graft platform, President Mwai Kibaki set up a commission of inquiry to probe the Goldenberg scandal and allegations that top officials in Moi's government were involved in the scam.
The commission wrapped up its inquiry last week to write its recommendations, which will be sent to Kibaki.
But a civic group applied to the High Court for an order that would keep the inquiry alive until a new application was submitted to have Moi and the other officials testify.
In a lengthy ruling on Friday, the judges said that it was in the public interest that people allegedly involved in the scandal be prosecuted and the lost cash recovered.
"The court has the responsibility to uphold that interest," the judges ruled Friday.
Moi's lawyer Mutula Kilonzo disregarded the ruling, saying the former president will not testify.
"Moi will not go to Goldenberg on the basis of orders by people who have no knowledge of what is going on at the inquiry," said Kilonzo, who has been representing the former president at the inquiry.
"Mind you, this order has not been issued not by the inquiry chairperson (Justice Samuel) Bosire, so they are not binding," he told AFP by phone.
Kilonzo described the judges who issued the orders as "judicial mercenaries bent on harassing Moi."
In May, Pattni named Moi and former top secret policeman James Kanyotu as key figures in the deal.
Moi rejected the claims and refused to testify before the inquiry board, headed by a court of appeal judge.
- SAPA