Inside court's ruling to halt Anglo-Leasing long legal battle

When the anti-corruption court acquitted Deepak Kamani and his brother, Rashmi, from the Anglo-Leasing fraud case in January this year, it brought to an end another high profile case involving tycoons and top civil servants.

After running for more than two decades in court, the Sh7.05 billion fraud case was dropped as have many other cases involving Asian tycoons for lack of evidence and witnesses becoming reluctant.

The Kamani brothers were charged together with former permanent secretaries Joseph Onyonka, Dave Mwangi, Joseph Magari and the late David Mwiraria who served as the Minister for Finance in former President Mwai Kibaki’s government.

Also in court charged with committing economic crimes and conspiracy to steal the colossal amount of money from the government, were two companies Sound Day Corporation and Apex Finance.

Anglo Leasing company was involved in the security-related tenders.

Like in the just-ended Sh 7.6 billion case against Yagnesh Devani and Triton Oil Ltd where lack of witnesses led to his acquittal, the Sh7.05 billion Anglo-Leasing case was thrown out for lack of evidence.

Main players

In his ruling, the Milimani Anti-Corruption Court Chief Magistrate Felix Kombo observed that former Internal Affairs Minister Chris Murungaru was not among those produced in court, yet he could have been a crucial witness.

He also noted that the police, who were to be the users of the security equipment that should have been procured, were not involved in the court proceedings.

“I have come to the conclusion that the prosecution failed to prove a case against the accused for the court to put them on their own defence and I therefore acquit them for lack of evidence,” ruled Kombo and with a stroke of the pen bringing the long running case to a screeching halt and setting the Kamani’s free. The mega scandal hit the headlines around the world, with Hindustan Times of India, whose circulation at the time was more one million copies daily, carrying a lead story in April, 2006 under the heading: ‘‘The Indian origin businessmen in Kenya scandal’’.

“The two brothers of Indian origin are prime suspects in a scandal involving Kenya’s security-related contracts,” wrote the Delhi-based publication that today still sells about a million copies daily.

Two brothers

The paper reported that Kenyan authorities had announced a reward of Sh100,000 ($1,390) at the time, on the heads of the two brothers of Indian origin who were prime suspects in the scandal involving the country’s security-related contracts.

The Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), the precursor of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) not only announced the bounty but also released pictures of Deepak and Rashmi for easy identification by the public and media.

The scandal was part of the many Anglo-leasing contracts introduced by ministers and top officials in President Mwai Kibaki’s administration and then revealed by whistleblower John Githongo, who had also been appointed Permanent Secretary for Ethics.

Senior officials took advantage of a Cabinet decision that raised the need for a new passport printing system by the previous administration in 2002, shortly before Kibaki’s Narc administration came into power.

According to the contracts that were quickly signed, the new passport equipment system was to be sourced from France and while in another scandal of epic proportions, forensic science laboratories for the police were to be procured from Britain.

The Standard (then The East African Standard) reported that the transaction was originally quoted at six million euros from a French firm but was awarded to Britain’s Anglo-Leasing and Finance Company Ltd, at 30 million euros and the UK based firm then sub-contracted the same French company to do the work.

It was further reported that the tender was not publicly advertised, and its details were leaked to the media by Githongo who had snooped a discussion among his senior colleagues in government. The PS went into exile in Britain for fear of persecution by those involved in the scandal but later returned to the country.

The Anglo-Leasing sales agent was Sudha Ruparel, at the time a 48-year-old, daughter of Chamanlal Kamani, one of Kenya’s wealthiest men, and sister of Deepak and Rashmi. Sudha was among those who were charged when the Kamani brothers were arraigned in 2015.

In 2006, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) tabled a report on Anglo Leasing in Parliament, listing Deepak as a key suspect, saying he was either an agent, possible owner or director of the Anglo Leasing company.

Githongo told PAC he had established that Deepak was behind the contract between Anglo Leasing and Kenya’s Ministry of Home Affairs, for the supply of the so-called tamper proof passports.

It was, however, later discovered that the firm was not only non-existent and also that the money paid out to it as commitment fee was mysteriously returned to the Treasury.

Government officials involved in the transaction, which would have cost the country billions of shillings, refused to say who refunded the money.

Both KACC and Directorate of Criminal Investigations detectives then took over the case promising to bring all those involved to book, claiming they had established good leads that could lead to arresting and charging the brothers.

The Kamani family was at the time one of the wealthiest in Kenya at the time with interests in agriculture (mainly floriculture), infrastructure, telecommunications, project financing, real estate, cotton imports as well as the hotel industry.

Similar names

As the case was going on Kenya, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) claimed people with similar names to the Kamani brothers had a Credit Suisse account that appeared to have remained active even after official investigations were launched.

“Deepak Kamani opened a Credit Suisse account in 2000, according to leaked records from Suisse Secrets, an investigation coordinated by OCCRP and based on a huge trove of banking data leaked to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper,” read part of the report.

Suisse Secrets was a collaborative journalism project based on leaked bank account data from Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse.

The data was provided by an anonymous source to Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared it with OCCRP and 46 other media partners around the world.

The report said Kamani held the account jointly with his brother, Rashmi, and other family members. It recorded its highest balance of 5.16 million Swiss francs ($4.1 million) in September 2006, months after Kenyan authorities had declared the brothers wanted.

Eight years ago, The Nairobian, a Standard Group publication reported that were it not for the Sh56 billion Anglo-Leasing scandal that rocked the Kibaki administration in 2003, few Kenyans would have had a glimpse of the Kamanis, the billionaire Indian family that ran Kamsons (short for Kamani and Sons) Group.

The paper said Kamsons Group introduced the Mahindra car in Kenya which was used as a police patrol vehicle in the early 1990s with its fair share of controversy. It added that besides Anglo-Leasing that was associated with providing modernised security surveillance system for the police, the story of the Kamanis started way earlier.

Chamanlal Kamani, the patriarch of the family is said to have arrived from Goa, India, in 1950 following an invitation by a cousin who was working as an accountant for the colonial police.

He arrived with only Sh16 on him and had to marry a local to live in Kenya. He found a wife in Mombasa and a job as a mechanic, before opening Africa Motor Spares along Nairobi’s Tom Mboya Street in pre-independent Kenya, which his son, Deepak, joined when he turned 17.

So good was the son at selling spares that his father opened an outlet in Mombasa for him in 1969. The family also diversified into posho mills under Kamsons Ltd — the vehicle they used in securing multi-million shilling government tenders.

Chamanlal was also charged over the Anglo Leasing case, but died during the course of trial proceedings.