Kenyan Blogger Cyprian Nyakundi won a case against the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in which he was accused of plotting to extort a bank of Ksh17.5 million.
The judge in the case, in a Thursday, March 11, ruling, observed that DCI had entrapped the blogger by illegally obtaining the evidence against him.
The judge further stated that the evidence was not admissible in the court of law.
Detectives arrested Nyakundi in January 2020 on alleged charges of extortion amounting into millions of shillings.
A statement released by the agency shortly after the arrest indicated that the blogger, alongside another suspect identified as Emmanuel Nyamweya Ong'era, had been caught red-handed conning the said businessmen who were attached to a bank in Nairobi.
The DCI claimed that the two suspects had received Ksh1 Million from the victims as down-payment of the Ksh17.5 million they had demanded.
According to the DCI, the suspects had demanded the hefty amount in order to pull down an article from a website.
"Detectives based at Gigiri have today afternoon arrested two suspects namely Cyprian Andama Nyakundi and Emmanuel Nyamweya Ong'era after successful investigations touching on extortion, blackmail, and false accusations.
"The two had just received Ksh1 million from one of their victims being a down payment of Ksh 17.5 million they had earlier demanded as a precondition for pulling down libellous posts appearing on a website allegedly owned by the suspects," read the statement in part.
The detectives disclosed that the blogger had published a story about the bank sometime in October alleging that it had been involved in fraudulent dealings and money laundering.
It was also noted that Nyakundi had initiated a conversation with the bank's top executives in January 2020, and asked them for money in order for him to pull down the story.
It was at around that time that the executives reported him to Gigiri Police Station and investigations into the matter opened.
The detectives also revealed that the bank's bosses had maintained conversations with Nyakundi and had promised to pay him the money on a set date in January 2020. That was when the police laid a trap at Westgate Mall and arrested him.
