The French company that supplied information technology equipment used in the 2017 General Elections has withdrawn a suit against Raila Odinga and other opposition leaders.
Safran and OT-Morpho, now known as Idemia Identity and Security France had in April sued Raila, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetangula, Junet Mohamed and ODM communication manager Philip Etale for defamation.
[caption caption="NASA leaders Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka addressing a press conference "]
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The firm on Thursday asked the court to close the case saying they were no longer interested in pursuing the matter.
The company moved to court seeking to have the leaders stopped from linking it to election rigging and wanted them stopped from making further reference to the entity in making the poll rigging claims.
In the suit, OT-Morpho also sought to have their firm compensated for alleged defamation.
The company had supplied the Kenya Integrated Election Management Systems (KIEMS) worth Sh3.2 Billion to IEBC.
Apart from being used in the voter identification process, the KIEMS technology helped in the relaying of poll results which the Supreme Cout found to have been marred with 'irregularities and illegalities' in the first election.
Safran was also aggrieved by a letter NASA dated September 7,2017, to the French Government demanding that company’s head of the Kenyan project Mr. Laurent Lambert and head of analytics Mr. Axel Gaucher are punished.
The two firms had written to leaders and demanded that they apologise but it has emerged the leaders never responded.
[caption caption="NASA coalition supporters at a rally "]
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“Rigging of elections is a serious and emotive issue in Kenya which in the past has resulted to violence. The plaintiffs are apprehensive that the defendants continuing to make allegations o rigging of elections against them will continue to suffer irreparable losses not only in relation to their reputation but also in loss of their business,” the firms told Justice Joseph Sergon.
The NASA leaders Raila Odinga, Musalia Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka in separate responses after the suit denied claims that they had defamed the firm.
Mr Odinga denied being the author of the letter that asked the French government to institute criminal charges against the company managers leading business in Kenya.
