KENYA'S EX-PRESIDENT MOI FINED FOR LAND GRAB
- A High Court in Kenya has ordered former President Daniel arap Moi to pay nearly $10 million to a family for illegally acquiring their 53-acre parcel of land 36 years ago, local media reports say.
Privately-owned newspaper Daily Nation says on 21 September 21, 1983, the former head of state ordered officials to register the land, owned by former Chief Noah Kipngeny Chelugui, under his name.
The paper says Moi then sold the land 24 years later to a company owned by the Jaswant Rai family.
Kenya's leading TV station Citizen TV reported that the judge said the acquisition of the land was done in an "unlawful manner," and "not worthy of any constitutional protection."
In its ruling, the High Court in Eldoret in Kenya's Rift valley region said Moi's action was unlawful and ordered both the former ruler and the Kenyan company Rai Plywood, linked to the Rai family, to pay Chelugui's family about $10m, which is the current market value of the land.
The former chief's 85-year-old wife and son sued Moi, Rai Plywood and other entities.
Meanwhile, Kenya's Chief Justice David Maraga has called for changes to the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalises consensual sex between teenagers, local media reports say.
“There is an obvious injustice of filling up the jails with teenage offenders who get intimate with fellow teenagers as they experiment in their adolescence,” he was quoted by local newspaper Daily Nation as saying at a seminar in Nairobi on Thursday.