Legal advisor to CORD leader Raila Odinga advocate Paul Mwangi has written a demand letter to Jubilee Alliance Majority Leader Aden Duale over malicious and derogatory remarks he uttered against the ODM leader regarding alleged debts he claimed the CORD leader owes Mumias sugar.
In the letter, seen by Kenya Today, Mr. Mwangi lists 10 grounds of a potential defamatory suit against Hon. Duale should he not respond within seven days of receipt of the letter.
The letter quotes widely published comments by Hon. Aden Duale that Hon. Odinga owes Mumias Sugar Company ksh 40 million. Mr. Odinga does not owe Mumias any money and a legal document circulating on social media (on State House Dennis Itumbi’s timeline) is a forgery.
Odinga, however, wants majority leader Aden Duale to account for his outrageous claims. Â At a press conference in parliament, flanked by several TNA MPs, Duale said.
“We also want our friend, Raila Odinga, the Lord of Poverty, to go to western Kenya. We want the people of Western Kenya to come out in large numbers to welcome him; to listen to his rhetorics, to listen to his kitendawilis, but at the end of the day he has two choices (sic); he either gives the cheque so that those people can take their children to school, on behalf of his family and his companies, or, which is allowed in law, in civil litigation law, he provides a pre-payment (sic) schedule…”
It is this statement, and another at a function in Belgut over the weekend, where Duale claimed Odinga owes Mumias Sugar Ksh. 40 million and called on western Kenya legislators to go to his (Raila’s) office and pick a cheque, which Mr. Mwangi wants Duale to justify in a court of law.
“Your words in their natural and ordinary meaning and by way of innuendo were calculated to tarnish our client’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable people in the Kenyan society and the world at large and to cause harm and injury to our client as a businessman, a politician and a leader.” reads the letter.
Mwangi continues, ”at the time of uttering the above words, you Aden Duale, knew or ought to have known that;-
1. Raila Odinga does not owe Mumias Sugar Comapny Limited any money whatsoever;
2. That Raila Odinga does not owe the people of western Kenya any money whatsoever;
3. That Raila Odinga is an accomplished politician and a leader in the Kenyan society with a deserved reputation for fighting for democracy and human rights for the people of Kenya;
4. That Raila Odinga has for several decades dedicated his life to the fight to ameliorate the plight of poor people in Kenya and has initiated and fought for initiation of many programmes of poverty alleviation in Kenya;
5. That Raila Odinga was leading the agitation by the opposition leaders in Kenya for the Jubilee government of which your, Aden Duale, is a leader therein, to disclose the details of sugar deal entered into by President Uhuru and President Museveni;
6. That Raila Odinga had stated that the effect of the said sugar deals will be to impoverish the people of Nyanza and Western Provinces where the bulk of Kenya’s sugarcane is grown.
“Your words were further calculated to hamper and weaken the agitation by leaders of the opposition in general and Raila Odinga in particular for the jubilee government to be accountable to the people of Kenya for the deals signed between the two presidents as aforesaid and were uttered with malice and using derogatory language meant to accentuate the harm and injury inflicted on our client,” notes Mwangi.
Duale has been given seven days to respond to the
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