A United Kingdom court has rejected an appeal by Yagnesh Devani, the businessman behind the Sh7.6 billion Triton petroleum scandal, to block his extradition to Kenya. The court ruling was delivered by Lord Justice Underhill on May 6 on an online platform due to Covid-19. The case had dragged on for a decade.
The tycoon had claimed that he would not face a fair trial in Kenya and he feared being locked up in Kenya’s filthy prisons citing the case of alleged child trafficker pastor Gilbert Deya who was extradited to Kenya in 2017.
Mr Devani was a director of Triton Petroleum Limited, where together with others they engineered the release of the oil company’s stock of fuel from the Kenya Pipeline Company’s (KPC) storage tanks without informing the financiers leaving them with a Sh7.6 billion loss in 2008.
Mr Devani then fled the country after the scandal and the government has been seeking to bring him back to Kenya for years to face 19 fraud charges .
The fugitive was arrested in London in 2011 pleas to offer him asylum fell on deaf ears, he then sought to stop his extradition to Kenya to face charges related to the scam.
During his time in office, the fugitive who was close friends with the high and mighty in the country is said to have used his political and business connections to have the 96,000 tonnes of processed petroleum released using back doors without the financiers knowledge and authorisation.
Financiers in the consignment include KCB and PTA banks, Fortis Bank of Netherlands, Glencore Energy UK Limited and Emirates National Oil Corporation (ENOC) of Singapore.
After the Scam and numerous investigations, senior KPC officials were sacked for the loss and charged with corruption.
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