Democratic Action Party of Kenya (DAP-K) leader Eugene Wamalwa has praised web developer and activist Rose Njeri Tunguru for her courage after a Nairobi court dismissed cybercrime charges that had been brought against her.
The case, which was linked to Njeri’s digital campaign against the controversial Finance Bill 2025, was thrown out by a Milimani court on Friday, June 20, 2025. Principal Magistrate Geoffrey Onsarigo ruled that the charges brought against her did not meet the legal threshold required to constitute a criminal offence.
In a statement shared via his X account on Saturday, June 21, 2025, Wamalwa applauded Njeri’s boldness in standing up against what he called the weaponisation of the criminal justice system.
He accused President William Ruto’s administration of using state institutions to stifle dissent and freedom of expression.
“Thank you, Rose Njeri, for your courage in taking on the system and exposing the pathetic levels of weaponisation of the criminal justice system by the Ruto regime to suppress dissent and freedom of expression,” Wamalwah stated.
Njeri was arrested on May 30, 2025, for creating a website that automated mass emails to the Finance Committee of Parliament, urging lawmakers to reject the Finance Bill 2025. According to the prosecution, the tool sent messages to the committee’s official email address, causing a disruption.
She was arraigned on June 3 and released on a personal bond of Ksh100,000. The prosecution, led by Victor Owiti from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), had intended to charge her under Section 16 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act No. 5 of 2018, accusing her of unauthorised interference with a computer system.
Court ruling
However, during her court appearance, Njeri’s defence team, which included high-profile legal heavyweights such as Kibe Mungai, former Chief Justice David Maraga, Senior Counsel Kalonzo Musyoka, lawyer Eric Theuri, Ndegwa Njiru, and Senator Daniel Maanzo, strongly opposed the charges.
They argued that the charge sheet failed to disclose any offence, saying it lacked enough information to allow their client to respond or even take a plea. They further pointed out that the reported interference did not meet any definition of crime under the law, as there was no evidence that the system crashed, malfunctioned, or caused financial or physical harm.
Magistrate Onsarigo agreed with the defence and noted that the charges did not indicate whether the email system was affected in a way that met the legal requirements for a cybercrime offence.
“Upon perusal of the entire Section 13 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, the particular offence, the charges do not allege, as provided under Section 16.3, whether the system crashed,” Magistrate Onsarigo ruled.
He added that simply sending messages to an official email address designed to receive communication from the public does not constitute interference with a computer system.
“This court is persuaded that, in line with the safe provision of statute and the reasons that I have stated above, I hereby refuse to admit the two counts before this court and, therefore, I hereby proceed to discharge the subject, the suspect that is lost in the written rule, under Section 895 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” Magistrate Onsarigo ruled.
The court also noted that the prosecution had not provided any evidence that national security was compromised or that the website in question caused any form of injury or economic loss.
In delivering his ruling, Magistrate Onsarigo said the charges were ambiguous and legally insufficient. He cited Section 895 of the Criminal Procedure Code to discharge the case, stating that the court was not convinced any crime had been committed.
