- Kenyan sect leader, Maian Njenga has been freed earlier today after prosecutors dropped multiple murder charges against him. Mr Njenga was accused by police of ordering the killing of 29 people at a central Kenyan village in April this year.
He was also under serious investigations in relation to other serious criminal offences committed by Mungiki members under his command.
Local reports said the Attorney General, through state counsel Charles Orinda, terminated the case through nolle prosequi against Mr Njenga and 20 other suspects who face 29 counts of murder.
Mr Njenga’s release comes only a day after Justice Joseph Sergon ruled that Mr Njenga should plead to the murder charges against him. He had objected to the murder charges and even refused to plead to charges before the Nyeri High Court.
The sect leader had been charged in connection with the Mathira massacre in which 29 people were brutally murdered in a revenge attack on 20 April. His release means that a constitutional reference that he had filed in the High Court in Nairobi challenging the legality of the murder charges has been swept over.
Mr Njenga was re-arrested on 27 April moments after he was released by the High Court in Nairobi following a successful appeal against a five-year jail term for alleged illegal possession of a firearm and marijuana.
Mr Njenga through his lawyer Robert Asembo said the murder charges were a fabrication since he was in Mombasa prison when the alleged offence was committed.
The Mungiki gang was officially banned in 2002. In 2007 more than 100 suspected sect members were killed in a police crackdown after a series of grisly beheadings blamed on the sect.
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