Three individuals have been arraigned at the Chief Magistrate Court in Eldoret.
Paul Kirwa Samoei, Julius Kipkosgei Ruto, and Tamar Cheptoo Birgen are accused of using a forged Title Deed to obtain an eviction order, evicting genuine landowners from a 20-acre parcel in Ngeria, Kapseret constituency, Uasin Gishu County, on October 7, 2022.
According to Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the investigation by the Land Fraud Investigations Unit (LFIU) was initiated after a letter from the affected landowners was received at the DCI headquarters on January 31, 2024.
Furthermore, the landowners claimed they had legally purchased the land from East African Tanning Extract Company Limited (EATEC) in 2001, yet a suspicious title deed was registered under PIONEER/NGERIA BLOCK 1(EATEC)/1980.
“LFIU detectives discovered that the title deed used by the suspects was not issued by the Ministry of Lands, not printed by Government Printers, and was absent from the land registry records,” DCI said in a post on X.
Additionally, the green card for the land was not serialized, and stamps and signatures on related documents were forged.
The suspects face seven counts, pleaded not guilty, and were released on a Sh500,000 bond.
The pretrial is scheduled for July 22, 2024.
