A long-time employee of flamboyant Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko has instituted criminal charges against the politician for allegedly assaulting him at the KICC.
“In the upshot, we wish to implore your office to facilitate expeditious investigations into the said incident with a view of instituting criminal charges against Senator Mike Mbuvi alias Mike Mbuvi Sonko for the requisite culpable offences known to law. We are a country governed by the rule of law and hope that the said principle will prevail in the handling of this matter,” states lawyer Gachuhi Wanjohi and Company Advocates letter to the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo.
George Owino, Sonko’s personal assistant, said in a report at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre police station OB No 15/13/5/2014 that Sonko accosted him last Tuesday afternoon and slapped and assaulted him in the full glare of his colleagues and members of public before ordering three AP officers to arrest and lock him in the basement of the KICC. He says he was released without charge the same day along with a woman who had also been arrested.
Through his lawyers, Owino says he was executing his lawful duties at the KICC as the senator’s employee when he was approached by a group of women who were seeking audience with the senator. They said they had received information that Sonko was distributing salon equipment to women from Nairobi.
“The Honourable senator came back and found our client talking to the said lady when in a turn of events the Honourable Senator viciously attacked our client slapping him in the full glare of the public and his colleagues. As the senator was meting the said beating on our client, he loudly called our client a ‘conman’, which in act is not the case. Our client was embarrassed by the said incident and suffered public ridicule and contempt in the eyes of the members of public,” says a complaint letter by the lawyer, reference number MIS/CRIM/15/5/14/001, addressed to the IG.
In the letter, also copied to the Independent Oversight Police Authority, and the OCPD KICC police station, the lawyer says his client was held against his will despite the fact that he had not committed any offence. The lawyer further says no report was made or recorded at the police station to suggest that his client had committed an offence to warrant the detention. Owino was released on bond and lodged his complaint.
“Our client sustained minor injuries on the jaw and was treated at St Catholic Church Hospital. He was consequently examined and obtained a Medical Examination Report (P3) to that effect.”
The senator was charged with assaulting a senior government official at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport while a senior Parliament official who had accused him of assault later withdrew the charges.
Owino yesterday said he hopes the IG will ensure that criminal charges are instituted against Sonko. ” I hope this will no be another case where different laws are applied to the poor and the rich or influential. A crime should be treated as a crime whether committed by the rich and prominent or the poor,” said Owino, who has worked for the senator for the last six years. The senator is out of the country and could not be reached for comment by yesterday morning.
