A suspect previously accused of fraud in a SIM swap scheme linked to former OCS Samson Taalam has withdrawn his guilty plea and entered a plea of not guilty.
Appearing before the Milimani Law Courts, Dennis Masavi Musyimi had the charges against him read afresh, after which he denied fraudulently replacing Taalam’s mobile phone line. The prosecution alleges that the compromised line was used to solicit funds from members of the public under false pretenses.
Musyimi’s lawyer urged the court to grant his client lenient bail terms, arguing that he is a young man who had recently completed school and was working at an M-Pesa shop in Pipeline. The defence insisted that Musyimi was not a flight risk and should be treated fairly, especially given that the other two accused persons in the case had already been released on bond of Sh250,000 each.
The defence also sought more lenient terms for the co-accused. One of them, Amos Nzomo Kimanzi, was described as a mason, married, and a father of two school-going children, making him deserving of favorable consideration.
The prosecution, however, made an application for the matter to be transferred to Court 7, where a similar case is already pending, with the aim of consolidating the files for streamlined proceedings.
Magistrate Dolphina Alego directed probation officers to prepare a pre-bail report before determining the next steps. The matter was scheduled for mention on August 26, 2025, when the court will review the report and issue further directions.
The case dates back to events alleged to have occurred between June 16 and June 19, when the mobile line in question was under the custody of the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA). At the time, IPOA was conducting investigations into the death of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang, who had died while in police custody, a matter that implicated former OCS Taalam.
Musyimi faces the charges alongside two other suspects, James Mutemi Munyithya and Nzomo Kimanzi. All three are jointly charged with computer fraud under Section 26(1) of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act No. 5 of 2018.
The case will be mentioned again on August 26, 2025, for consideration of the pre-bail report and consolidation of charges.
