A lawyer was on Wednesday arrested in Mandera County after he was suspected of having stolen critical evidence from the Judge's chambers.
According to Senior Resident Magistrate Peter Areri, the evidence went missing from his chambers hours after he heard an election petition involving the unnamed lawyer.
Mr Areri divulged that he was planning to write a ruling on whether the matter would be dismissed or the hearings would proceed.
"We had proceedings on Tuesday and I had to deliver a ruling on whether the petition should be heard or quashed only for parts of the file to go missing hours later.
"One of the respondents in the petition had applied for the petition to be struck out and I was to prepare a ruling on that only for parts of the file to disappear. I could not write a ruling without the part that was missing which is the main body of the petition," the Magistrate explained.
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Mr Areri noted that only five people had been present in the courtroom during the hearing of the petition, among them three advocates.
When the court clerk confirmed that he did not have the crucial document, the officials sought to find the three advocates.
"The clerk did not have the document neither was it in my cabinet, forcing us to go after the advocates who were headed to the airstrip in the morning.
"These documents were found inside the advocate’s bag at the airstrip," the Magistrate narrated.
Mandera County Commissioner, Fredrick Shisia, confirmed the events adding that the advocate had since been locked up at the Mandera Police Station.
"The police are working on knowing how the advocate got hold of the part that was found in his bag at the airstrip.
"He had interfered with proceedings of an early morning petition which he was not a party to and I had been forced to kick him out," Mr Areri reported.
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