Tuesday, June 23, 2015
DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko has rejected a police bid to charge an eight-year-old boy with the offence of malicious damage to property.
At the same time, the DPP ordered the immediate release of the standard four pupil of Boolshade Primary School, whom the police had arrested and detained at the Soweto police station, where he spent the night until yesterday morning.
A letter signed by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Daniel Karuri and copied to the OCS Soweto in Kayole, Nairobi county, says that section 14(1) of the Penal Code provides that any person under the age of eight years is not criminally responsible for any act or omission.
?The DPP ordered: “In the circumstances, l decline to approve the charge sheet and direct that the suspect be immediately released from police custody unconditionally.”
??Addressing the press outside the courts immediately after he was released, the boy’s parents, through lawyer Nyaboga Mariaria, accused the OCS Kayole of not following the law when handling suspects.The lawyer said he expected the OCS to be in the frontline doing his duties instead of abusing his authority by detaining an underage suspect together with hardcore criminals in the same cell.
?The parents said that on Sunday evening at around 4pm, police from the Soweto station stormed their house in Kayole and picked up the boy from the neighbourhood playground, where he was playing with other children of the estate.
The DPP wondered why it took a year to submit the police file to his office. He said the suspect is alleged to have damaged one 3-inch pipe valued at Sh2,000 on May 14, 2014, the?property of the complainant.? ?The parents, Henry Juma and his wife Esther Kemuto, also accused the? complainant in the case, saying she is their neighbour and a businesswoman and had earlier threatened them that “nowadays money speaks and not age”.