A man charged with the offense of obtaining Money by false pretense in a scheme to offer ship towing services has a case to answer.
Yusuf Mutumba Kiyemba who appeared before Mombasa chief magistrate Martha Mutuku during the hearing of his case is now set to be put on his defense following the closure of the prosecution case.
The court heard that Joana Fidele had on December 24 2017 arrived in kenya for the purpose of purchasing a ship and being unable to speak English he sought assistance from Kiyemba who is a Kenyan and able to speak their native language Malagasy.
From their interaction Fidele developed trust with Mr. Kiyemba
The particulars are that on November 29,2018 around 1000hrs at Tikara hotel in Mombasa township within Mombasa county,with intent to defraud, Yusuf Mutumba Kiyemba obtained from Joana Fidele the sum of 55,000USD by falsely pretending to facilitate the towing of Mv.Rozen ship to Madagascar from Mombasa port a fact he knew was not true.
The court also heard that on July 23, 2018, Fidele managed to buy his intended vessel which costed him 450,000USD.
It is after this that kiyemba entrusted Fidele with various errands at the ship where he was being paid after every assistance he offered on each occasion
The court further heard that, upon acquiring the ship, Fidele now wanted to ferry it to Madagascar and owing to this reason he sought the services from Kiyemba who accepted.
Kiyemba later alleged to Fidele that he had found a company which could help in towing the ship at a cost of 40,000USD the amount which Fidel was willing to pay.
On December 24,2018 the two met at hotel where the Fidel had camped. He then gave the accused a total of 55,000UDS. 40,000USD to be paid to the towing company and 15,000USD as his intended services to Madagascar.
Kiyemba later went back to the hotel and handed over a cash sale receipt from CORMACO (EPZ LTD) to Fidele.
Following the developed trust between the two, the complaint felt satisfied and decided to buy food supplements and other things in the ship having been informed by the accused that the ship would be towed to Madagascar on December 2.
On December 1, the Kiyemba went back again to the hotel to meet Fidele where he informed him (Fidele) that the company’s tug which had been assigned to tow his ship had been allocated other duties and was at the time headed to Columbia and it would only be available in three weeks. The game of changing dates went on for a long time until Fiedele got tired and traveled back to Madagascar.
While in Madagascar, he assigned one, Bejoma Ronaldo to be in charge of the vessel and gave him power of ownership while he was away.
Bejoma who now became the special owner of the ship followed the payments to Cormaco where he confirmed that there were no payments made and the company also disowned the receipt. this prompted him to report the matter to police where the accused was arrested following investigations and charged.
He will be put on his defense on March 28 this year.
