Environment and Lands Court has made a few changes on the Weston Hotel case linked with Deputy President William Ruto.
Among the changes made to the land ownership wrangle pitting Weston Hotel and the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) is the date of hearing which has been slated for March 15, 2022.
The case was previously being heard by Justice Bernard Eboso who was transferred by Chief Justice Martha Koome on May 21 from Milimani law courts to Thika to work together with Justice Grace Kemei who was transferred from Murang'a.
In the latest changes, Justice Lucy Mbugua will be tasked with hearing and making the verdict on the case when it resumes just months to the 2022 General Election.
In submissions filed in court, the hotel's lawyers argued that the case was fueled with politics making the Second in Command to be prosecuted in the public arena.
This comes just days after Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader, Raila Odinga made statements during Jamhuri Celebrations at Uhuru Gardens on Sunday, December 12, alleging that the Hotel might be sitting on the land set aside for the historic park.
“Here next to Weston hotel, which is part of this grounds…In Lang’ata Primary School there are torture chambers that have been preserved by the national museum.
“This land had been grabbed by those land grabbers who don’t see any open space but you managed to retrieve it back for the benefit of our people and it is going to remain truly Uhuru Gardens,” Raila stated.
Weston in its defense regarding the case that has been going on for quite a while now, wants the court to quash a ruling delivered by the environmental land that gave it powers to hear disputes from National Lands Commission (NLC).
The management of the iconic hotel associated with Ruto had even at first sought to enter into negotiations with KCAA to determine how much it will pay for the 0.773 hectare prime land that is located opposite Wilson Airport along Lang'ata road.
Part of their negotiations was for a fresh valuation to be conducted to determine the value of the land before the payment is done and the case settled.
With all those arguments in court, Weston had written to the environment and lands court to strike out the case since KCAA had not exhausted the available options for the settling of the case.
Justice Eboso before he was transferred had thrown out Weston's application arguing that KCAA also had a right to be heard in full.
This comes just days after a wanted billionaire was reported to have fled from Weston Hotel beating police dragnet in Ksh2.2 billion tax evasion case.
According to the documents presented in court, the billionaire who funded Jubilee Party might have received tip-offs from some influential people to escape before detectives arrived.
This prompted the sleuths to start trailing phone call records to establish who she was communicating with before fleeing and later surrendered before Milimani Law Courts.
