By Harrison Wanzallah
A media executive has taken legal action in the High Court to contest charges against her for allegedly sending threatening messages to her former boyfriend. Farida Idris Mohamed, a Media Commercial Director, is accused of sending menacing text messages to her ex-partner in 2019. She has now approached the High Court to challenge the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Renson Igonga, to press charges against her.
Farida is alleged to have sent multiple threatening messages to Hussein Aila Amaro on 14 and 15 June 2019, from an undisclosed location. In her court submission, she argues that the charges stem from malicious intent and has requested the court to dismiss them entirely.
In her defence, Farida explains that she was in a romantic relationship with Amaro, during which they lived together as a couple. Over their nine-year partnership, they co-founded a company, Enersence Solutions Limited, where they served as directors and equal shareholders, each holding a 50% stake. However, Farida claims their relationship deteriorated in 2019, resulting in their separation.
Since then, the pair have been embroiled in a series of civil disputes and unsubstantiated complaints lodged with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) over the ownership of their joint business. Farida further alleges that their failure to agree on a settlement figure for these disputes led Hussein to leverage his connections to orchestrate her prosecution.
She states in court documents, “The criminal proceedings are in bad faith and are clearly an afterthought to retaliate and express vendetta against the petitioner following their acrimonious relationship breakdown and failure to settle Sh17 million within the timeframe demanded by the ex-partner.”
Farida contends that the DPP did not undertake a fair and impartial review of the evidence before charging her, asserting that the prosecution amounts to an abuse of the judicial process. “The criminal case is being used to wield state power over the petitioner as a means of vexation and oppression for ulterior motives, rather than as a legitimate avenue to address a genuine complaint or deliver justice,” she claims.
Farida is now seeking the High Court’s intervention to overturn the DPP’s decision to charge and prosecute her. “The respondents’ actions to charge the petitioner with the offence of threatening to kill, as a retaliatory move using the criminal justice system to resolve a civil dispute, are unconstitutional and violate the petitioner’s constitutional rights to equal protection,” state the documents filed at Milimani Law Court.
Currently facing four counts related to threatening Hussein’s life, Farida had previously pleaded not guilty before Milimani Chief Magistrate Lukas Onyina. She was released on cash bail in April 2023.
