A Nairobi magistrate who is handling Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko's case lost his cool in court on Wednesday, February 19 and lectured a number of lawyers.
According to a video obtained by Kenyans.co.ke, Magistrate Douglas Ogoti, during the hearing, was dissatisfied with a number of documents the prosecution had submitted to the court and could not keep his calm any longer.
It all started when Ogoti demanded to know certain facts from the documents that had been submitted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) but the lawyer who was answering the questions appeared not to be in the know.
The jurist then reprimanded them for not being prepared.
"How do I know how many they are (the documents) and what they are? How do I know which page has what? You can't answer because you didn't prepare it, who prepared it?
"So who prepared it? Here, everybody speaks, who prepared it? (he repeatedly asked while raising his index finger).
"How do I know which document in the payment coucher is at what page? How do I know sitting here? I have given an order on pre-trial, a specific order that documents be disclosed singularly and why are you doing this? (he continued with an insistence tone).
"I will not allow you to fail me, are you listening? I will not. You have got to go back to the drawing board. I will not blame the prosecutors here because you are the owners of the file.
"I have given an order and it was in the public domain and has never been appealed. It is even published and you did not bother to go through it," ranted Ogoti.
He went on to analyse the document while explaining to the lawyers step by step and posed some tough questions to them.
"You know you should take these matters seriously. Why are you doing this? I don't know what to tell you, just sit down," he continued.
He later pointed out that such matters painted the court in bad light since it's the same lawyers who would later claim that the Judiciary was taking over the role of the DPP.
Ogoti made the sentiments during a hearing of a case in which Sonko is accused of misappropriating Ksh357 million from public coffers.
