Former roads official seeks separate graft trial

Kenya’s former Roads and Transport cabinet secretary Michael Kamau, who is facing a major graft case, does not want the case consolidated with another in which seven engineers are charged with a related offence. Kamau, who is charged jointly with two engineers, Mwangi Maingi and Nicholas Ndung’u, said he wanted his case tried separately. The Nation reports that the suspects are facing abuse of office charges over the redesigning of a road in Bungoma County which led to the loss of $324 000 a decade ago. They were first charged in June 2015, but Kamau challenged his prosecution at the High Court on grounds that the charges were unconstitutional. The court declined to stop the charges, prompting him to move to the Court of Appeal which ruled that the anti-corruption body which charged him was not properly constituted. It stated that it had the power to charge the suspects again once it was properly constituted.