Court has ordered Safaricom to release M-pesa transaction statements to one of the accused in Sh300 million fraud case.
Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi ruled that even if Safaricom is not a complainant in the case against the three accused, it has a mandate to present such information to its clients.
“Safaricom is a service provider and also a complainant in this case, it is required to present the required statements by its clients,” ruled Andayi.
The Tech Giant had argued that any of their customers can access statements from their shops and agents and there is no order required to access that information.
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In that case, two Safaricom employees Simon Billy Kinuthia and Brian Njoroge have been charged with unlawful transfer of data.
The prosecution has since sought to consolidate their case with that of third accused Benedict Kabugi who is facing similar charges.
The accused are said to have copied and transferred privileged subscribers’ data from Safaricom’s database to a third party named Charles Njuguna.
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The offence allegedly occurred on diverse dates between May 1 and June 7, 2019 at Safaricom Centre in Westlands.
The two faced a separate count of demanding money with menace after they allegedly demanded Sh300 million from Safaricom.
SEE ALSO :Man loses Sh200,000 to fraudsters through online bank
The accused pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Through their lawyer John Swaka, the accused objected to an application by prosecution to merge the two cases.
“My clients phone was confiscated by the police thus he cannot be able to retrieve M-Pesa transaction,” added Swaka
He said that Safaricom is frustrating the accused.
Swaka added one of the accused is a witness in another matter while in the intended charge sheet, he is listed as an accused.
SEE ALSO :Safaricom employee charged with Sh45,600 theft
“It is a great abuse of discretion by the side of prosecution because in one file the accused is an accused and another one he is a suspect,” added Swaka.
Swaka added that the suspects were arrested at different times and location and thus the two files cannot be consolidated.
The prosecution on the other hand said that the two cases are related and emanate from some victim.
They told the court that the law allows the prosecution to amend and merge the charges at any stage if the two files are of similar nature.
Swaka on the other hand said he needed more time to go through the documents which were served on Tuesday morning.
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Each of the suspects was granted Sh2 million bond, with an alternative of Sh1 million cash bail.
The matter will be mentioned on December 4, 2019 for consolidation.
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