A legal suit accusing National Assembly Speaker Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi of soliciting a Ksh1 million bribe marked the end of his career as a senior resident Magistrate.
According to the Standard Digital, Muturi had been sued by Masaba Hospital founder Dr Geoffrey Joel Momanyi in 1997 for allegedly soliciting the bribe "to sort out" a criminal case they were facing before his court.
Momanyi and his wife Fellgona Akothe Momanyi had been arraigned before Magistrate Muturi on July 28, 1995 on charges of defrauding the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) Ksh347,000.
[caption caption="National Assembly Speaker Justin Bedan Njoka Muturi"]
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This was part of the Ksh2 billion that NHIF had lost to fraudsters at the time where Akothe admitted before the court that a tape-recorded conversation was her and Muturi negotiating the deal.
The prosecution told the court that Muturi used his clerk Florence Ogutu to solicit bribes from the couple with the assistant testifying that the couple had approached Muturi pleading to be assisted in the fraud charge.
Muturi, however, denied the allegations concerning the alleged meddling with criminal case No. 2782/95 on different days between August 1996 and 1997 and soliciting for the said amount as an inducement to acquit or assist the accused couple (who are now both deceased).
On March 20, 1997, Speaker Muturi told the court that he was not guilty "to this most fabricated, malicious charge by the accused" and he was released on a Ksh300,000 bail and ordered to deposit his passport and other travel documents with the court.
At the end of a fierce court battle between him and the Momanyis, Muturi was acquitted in late 1997 but the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) did not reinstate him as a Magistrate.
Although the then prosecutor Senior Superintendent Jonathan Mwalili appealed against the ruling, the matter did not proceed any further.
[caption caption="The 1997 newspaper splash capturing the story"]
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This saw Muturi venture into business and elective politics joining parliament through a by-election in 1999 which was occasioned by the death of the then Siakago MP Cyrus Ita.
He won the subsequent polls in 2002 but lost the 2007 polls before he was elected Speaker of the National Assembly for both the 11th and 12th Parliament of Kenya.
