DPP recommends charges for Lumumba, Presiding Officer

Jan 10, 2012 News

The Director of Public Prosecutions has recommended that Presidential Adviser on Empowerment, Odinga

Presidential Adviser on Empowerment, Odinga Lumumba

Lumumba, and Presiding Officer Onika Beckles be charged with separate offences stemming from their altercation on Elections Day, last November.
Lumumba is to be charged for assaulting the Presiding Officer, while Beckles is to face a charge of preventing a political party candidate from entering a Polling Station.
The DPP’s advice ends weeks of investigation, during which the police were asked to provide additional information to that which was supplied initially.

Onika Beckles

On November 28, last, Beckles was allegedly forced to call in the police to an Aubrey Barker Road, South Ruimveldt Polling Station after Lumumba allegedly verbally abused her and also shoved her against a wall.
It is alleged that the People’s Progressive Party candidate also grabbed the camera phone from an Electoral Assistance Bureau (EAB) Observer who was recording the altercation and threw it to the floor, destroying it in the process.
He subsequently apologized to the Elections Observer and later replaced the phone with an explanation that he was angry at the time.
But according to senior police sources, the move to charge the presiding officer stems from a perusal of the Representation of the People’s Act.
Under the Act, a presiding officer cannot prevent a candidate of a political party from entering a polling station without good and sufficient reason.
Investigators found that Beckles acted in contravention of the Act when dealing with Lumumba on Elections Day.