A Kenyan man serving a 10-year jail sentence in the U.S has lost a suit where he had sued MultiChoice Kenya and the Copyright Board.
Jeffrey Ndungi, 32, had his 2015 suit against the two Kenyan entities dismissed by High Court Judge Chacha Mwita.
According to Business Daily, Ndungi was seeking payment for damages for what he said was infringement of his rights by MultiChoice and the Copyright Board when they raided his house and confiscated equipment he was using to tap DStv signals for distribution to other people without a license.
He argued the two entities did not have a search warrant when they raided his house.
MultiChoice in its defense noted that Ndungi was a “shrewd conman” who was much involved in piracy in North and West Africa besides Kenya where he had curved a niche in the same rogue business activity.
The judge in his verdict ruled that he finds no just reason as to ascertain the petitioner’s rights were constitutionally violated.
“Having carefully considered the petition, the evidence and the law, I am not satisfied that the petitioner has proved either that his constitutional rights were violated or that he suffered any damage,” said the Judge.
Mwita said that under the Copyright Act, a police officer is allowed “to arrest, without a warrant, any person suspected, upon reasonable grounds, of having committed an offence.”
Ndungi has a criminal case still pending at a Nairobi Court over the incident.
In the U.S, he is serving time for issuing dud cheques electronically in 2012 to federal authorities. The dud cheques were valued at Sh7.7 million.
A Texas court handed him the jail sentence or a fine of Sh25 million for stealing from the U.S government.
