On 19 December 2010, Administration Police officers acting on a tip pursued a Mitsubishi lorry with trailer registration T969 AHU and T914 AHK on the Namanga-Nairobi road in Kajiado District and recovered sixteen bags of cannabis sativa from the rear of the trailer.[1] The lorry had been carrying craft papers and had passed customs verification at Namanga earlier that day, while the driver, Jumanne Hassan Nasoro, disappeared after the vehicle was impounded.[1] The turn-boy, Christopher Antony Mapunda, was arrested at the scene.[1] A government chemist confirmed the plant material was cannabis, and police weighed the consignment at 582 kilograms, recorded as worth Ksh582,000.[1]
Mapunda was charged with trafficking in narcotic drugs, convicted in the Kajiado magistrate’s court on 29 February 2012, and sentenced to twenty years in prison plus a Ksh1,746,000 fine.[1] The trial court reasoned that as the lorry’s turn-boy he must have known about the sixteen bags.[1] On appeal, the High Court at Machakos found the prosecution had not proved Mapunda knew the cannabis was hidden among the paper rolls, noting the lorry had passed customs verification and that no explanation was given for the driver’s disappearance.[1] The court also found irregularities in how the drugs were weighed and how the chemist’s report was produced.[1] On 24 July 2014 the appeal was allowed, the conviction was quashed and the sentence set aside, and Mapunda was ordered released.[1]