South Mugirango Member of Parliament (MP) Sylvanus Osoro has dismissed claims that the Monday withdrawal of cases against the Azimio-allied leaders is linked to the political truce between President William Ruto and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
This after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji dropped all charges against six Azimio leaders among them Ugunja MP James Opiyo Wandayi, Kilifi Senator Stewart Madzayo and Amina Laura Mnyazi (Malindi) who were arrested during the anti-government protests.
Speaking on Citizen TV’s Daybreak show on Tuesday, MP Osoro stated that there is no relation between the two events and that the DPP was independently acting on his mandate just that it coincidentally occurred after the truce.
“The president made a commitment that he will respect the independence of institutions. There is nothing linked with Raila’s statement to the withdrawal of these cases in fact it ought to have happened,” said MP Osoro.
“I don’t know why it took so long, it was not really necessary to have the DPP approve those charges.”
The National Assembly Majority whip went on to add that independent institutions should not be associated with any political affairs, affirming that government is keen on honoring its commitment to not use the institutions to influence political resolves.
“Any person linking political issues to the police machinery or independent bodies should cease and I think that must be clear that the president or our coalition has no interest to use the criminal justice system to settle political scores,” he noted.
Echoing MP Osoro’s sentiments, Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi stated that it has remained vague on how the DPP approved of the charges in the first place, noting that he is still uncertain on whether the withdrawal was a consequence of the truce.
“I have no idea completely. First of all I do not even understand how the DPP ever came to approve those charges for prosecution.”
