Dennis Itumbi tells of the agony of securing Jacque Maribe’s freedom

Director of Digital Communications in the presidency Dennis Itumbi has recounted how he and the family of Citizen TV anchor Jacque Maribe made frantic efforts to clear the paper work required for her release but ran into frustrations at the High Court.

According to Itumbi though Maribe was released on bail or bond by Justice James Wakiaga on Tuesday she spend the night at Lang’ata Women’s Prison after the Deputy Registrar declined to sign the necessary documents.

They were forced to return at 7am on Wednesday but ran into similar roadblocks. Fearing she would spend a second night in remand, he took to Twitter and only then did officials intervene to resolve the issue.

“Interesting events at the Deputy Registrar in the High Court. We completed the bond process for our friend Jacque Maribe at 12pm and till now no progress & she is looking at another night in prison despite being freed by The Court yesterday. Let me tell you of the games. Yesterday, the same games were employed. The Deputy Registrar declined to sign the letter committing documents to land registry and registrar of persons yesterday. We decided to wait for today. This morning family and friends reported at the High Court at 7am and the Deputy Registrar signed a letter that was on her desk from last evening at 11am. No problem with that, we can live with that….” said Itumbi in a series of tweets Wednesday afternoon.

“Problem is after that we were told there is an order that “UPON release the investigating officer and the advocate will take an inventory of house” we argued that is UPON release. So they dropped that line… Next we needed a prosecutor from @ODPP_KE and obviously none was willing to get on record. So we decided to tweet,” he added.

According to Itumbi, after the posted the first tweet, officers from the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, who were not picking his call started calling back quick and fast.

Itumbi has been at the forefront in seeking to have Maribe, who was charged with the murder of business lady Monica Kimani alongside her fiance Joseph Irungu, saying he believed she was innocent. In the process, he has earned both praise and ridicule.

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Maribe was released on a bail of Ksh 2 million or a bond of Ksh 1 million with two sureties of a similar amount. Irungu, aka Jowie, was, however, denied bail with Justice Wakiaga saying he had no fixed abode, was a flight risk and a threat to witnesses.

Maribe was barred from presenting news during the course of the trial, among other tough conditions.