Charles Kanjama: Govt faces higher burden of proof by charging protesters with terrorism
Constitutional lawyer and Senior Counsel Charles Kanjama has raised concerns over the government’s decision to charge recent protest suspects with terrorism, warning that it significantly increases the legal threshold required for conviction.
Speaking during a televised interview on the night of Saturday, July 12, 2025, Kanjama stated that the government would have had an easier path prosecuting the individuals under arson or related criminal charges—offences that require less stringent proof compared to terrorism.
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“Unlawful damage to property in this situation is already an offence called arson that is in the penal code, and it would have been much easier for the government if they had evidence, or the police and the investigating agencies, to consider charging the people with a crime like arson, and the DPP would find it easier because you just prove the guilty act and the intention to cause injury,” Kanjama said.
Burden of proof
He went ahead to note that the government will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspects were not only intending to cause injury but went further and had a higher intention to cause terror to the population at large.
“In this particular case, they need to say that you are not only intending to cause injury, but you went further and had a higher intention to cause terror to the population at large or to compel the government to do something that was unlawful,” he remarked.
Kanjama further said that material facts of what happened in other parts of the country cannot be used to prosecute someone who was arrested for damage to another property.
“When you draft a charge sheet and go to court as the investigator or prosecutor, you have to put there the material facts relating to the accused person. So if you have arrested the accused person who has torched, for example, the Kikuyu Law Courts, you cannot put in the material facts of what happened in other parts of the country or other properties that were torched unless you get someone who was involved in arson at that other property. The government believes that it has got the suspects who were involved in injury to government properties, but they have not got any suspects who were involved in injury to private property,” he said.
Kalonzo’s concerns
Kanjama’s remarks come days after Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka accused the state of attempting to intimidate and silence perceived dissidents of the government by preferring fabricated charges against them.
In a statement shared via his X page on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, after appearing for the hearings of Manyatta MP Gitonga Mukunji, Peter Wawanjiru and Serah Wanjiku Thiga at the Kahawa Law Court, the opposition leader termed the charges against them as trumped up.
He expressed his dismay with the terrorism charges laid against them.
