Omar Lali, the former boyfriend of the late Keroche Breweries heiress Tecra Muigai, has been released on a cash bail of Sh300,000.
Lali was arrested and detained amid investigations to establish what led to the death of the Keroche heiress on May 2.
The court rejected an application by the police to continue holding the suspect since the state has failed to prefer any charges against him.
Lali’s lawyer, Yusuf Abubakar, said that the suspect will go back to court on June 10 for mention of the matter.
“The prosecution has not yet found a suitable charge against him. We are expected to be back again on June 10, to know whether the prosecution will continue with the case or might drop it,” said the advocate.
The prosecution had sought to have Lali detained for another one week after the expiry of the 21 days given earlier by the court.
The court session was held via a video link.
On May 4, Lamu Principal Magistrate Allan Sitati allowed the police to detain Lali for 21 days at the Lamu Police Station to enable them to conduct investigations onto what caused the death of Muigai.
The case was to be mentioned on Tuesday, May 26, for the court to issue further directions based on the findings of the investigation.
While appearing on the live court session on Tuesday, the prosecutor, Eddie Kadebe, told the court that police had not yet concluded investigations.
The prosecutor argued that the detectives wanted Lali to accompany them to the scene of the crime, including Jaha House in Shella where Muigai is said to have tripped and sustained serious head injuries that later caused her death as she received treatment at a Nairobi hospital.
The investigators have already taken the suspect to the scene three times.
While delivering the court’s decision, the magistrate refused to extend the pre-trial detention saying that “police had already visited the crime scene with Lali three times and the suspect fully cooperated.”
“The investigators had already taken the suspect to the scene of the crime and it would be excessive to keep Lali at the police cells so that investigators can accompany him to the scene again,” said Magistrate Sitati.
The magistrate said that 21 days earlier requested by the prosecution had elapsed, adding that they were more than sufficient to conclude the investigation to enable the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to make a decision on whether to charge the suspect or not.
Further, the court said that the pending phone information extraction is not a process that requires the suspect to continue being detained as police are already in possession of the device.
The magistrate further said that the pending toxicology analysis does not require the suspect to be in custody as Muigai’s samples have already been taken.
He said releasing the suspect on bond does not pose any security threat to the suspect of the community.
The autopsy results showed that Tecra fell and fatally injured herself while drunk.
