A Nairobi court has today condemned the decision by police to keep Comedian Eric Omondi in cells over the weekend for a misdemeanor offense.
Magistrate BenMark Ekhubi said the investigations officer should have allowed Eric to go home as he had already paid a police cash bail.
The court said the offense he was charged with was a misdemeanor and no one should hold someone in detention for such a minor charge.
Eric was charged with creating a disturbance likely to cause a breach of peace after allegedly blocking vehicles and pouring kales (sukuma wiki) on Parliament Road in Starehe Sub-County.
The said offense is believed to have been committed on June 4, 2024 only for him to be arrested five months later on November 15, 2024 where he spend the entire weekend in police cells.
His lawyers questioned the manner in which Eric was handled by the police saying that the offense was so minor for the police to deny him bail.
Magistrate Ekhubi, criticized law enforcement agencies for detaining suspects in misdemeanor cases unnecessarily.
“In such offenses, you don’t need to keep somebody in custody for a whole weekend,”the court said.
Eric denied the charges and was released on a cash bail of Sh 5,000.
The case will be mentioned on December 4, for pretrial purposes.
