Nazir Jinnah, the director of English Point Marina, has been fined Ksh. 250,000 for impersonating a lawyer from Khaminwa & Khaminwa Advocates.
The conviction and sentencing came after Jinnah lied to Harbans Singh Birdi and Shirin Akberali Jiwa that he is an associate and partner at the law firm.
The five counts against Jinnah related to pretending to be Dr. Khaminwa’s associate, conspiring to defraud Mr. Birdi, and unlawfully authoring sale documents for a prime piece of land in Nyari estate.
Jinnah presented himself as an advocate of Kenya with expertise in constitutional, civil, family, and even criminal matters. He even claimed to have operations in Nairobi, London, Washington DC, and Toronto.
In one of the cases, Jinnah wrote to a solicitor in the United Kingdom requesting to be a lead counsel in a divorce case filed in the UK.
He did this for more than a decade until two years ago when he was unmasked and it was discovered that he was a fake lawyer and has never worked in any of the law firms, including that of veteran lawyer John Khaminwa.
During the trial, Jinnah’s defense that Khaminwa & Khaminwa Advocates had never filed a complaint was not enough to get him off the hook.
Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Dolphina Alego went with the prosecution’s argument that investigating officers received a letter from Khaminwa & Khaminwa Advocates stating that Jinnah is not a lawyer or associate at the firm.
The Law Society of Kenya, which also submitted arguments in the case, had pushed for a maximum sentence for impersonation, which would have seen Jinnah spend five years in jail.
However, Alego ruled that Jinnah had the option of spending 18 months in prison or paying Ksh. 50,000 for each of the five counts he was convicted of.
Jinnah was found guilty of five counts and sentenced to a total of 18 months in jail. Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Dolphina Alego gave him the option of paying a fine of Ksh. 250,000.
Jinnah, who is a director of Pearl Beach Hotel, which is also known as English Point Marina, had denied the charges of presenting himself as an advocate, making a document without authority, and uttering false documents.
One of the charges stated that Jinnah presented himself as an advocate and an associate of Khaminwa and Khaminwa advocates with intent to defraud Herbas Singh Birdi.
He committed the offense between 2013 and 2017.
Another count stated that, with intent to defraud and without lawful authority, Jinnah made a letter for the sale of property in Nairobi’s Nyari estate.
One of the witnesses, Sonny Birdi, said he met Jinnah in 2013 and was known to his father as a consultant with Khaminwa advocates.
Birdi was going through his divorce in the UK and said he needed help. Jinnah said he would be the lead counsel in the case.
He wrote a letter of appointment to the UK solicitor as lead counsel for the case and said he paid for his travels to the UK on two occasions.
Nazir is one of the owners of English Point Marina.
Others are Amin Kanji, his wife Leila, brother Alnoor and sister-in-law Nafisa.
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Open in new tab Last year, local media reported how English Point Marina owners attempted to persuade the new CEO of KCB Group, Paul Russo, to end the ongoing legal proceedings surrounding the Ksh. 5.2 billion loan that KCB had threatened to seize.
In a letter to Russo, Nazir disclosed that he had already met the new CEO in a bid to persuade him to end the legal proceedings, which he described as “expensive.”
Nazir hoped that his meeting with Russo would save his multibillion-shilling business from being taken over.
Nazir also submitted an 18-page “Settlement & Financial Restructure Proposal,” in which he put forward a case for another reprieve.
He recalled how KCB advanced Pearl Beach a loan of Ksh. 2.66 billion to construct and develop a fully-serviced, multi-user, commercial, and residential real estate business in Mainland North in Mombasa.
Popularly known as English Point Marina, this mixed-use development had the markings of everything luxurious, including 107 luxurious apartments, a 26-room boutique hotel, restaurants, meeting rooms, Spa & Gym, and East Africa’s first floating pontoon marina.
Nazir argued that numerous construction and financial challenges, including frustration by KCB intermittently issuing instructions to the company’s contractors to stop any further construction under the suspicion of fraud, led to the loss of buyer confidence.
He said that only 42 confirmed apartment sales generated Ksh2.4 billion to offset the KCB loan, while another 65 apartments worth Ksh3.8 billion were never sold.
In total, the company intended to achieve cumulative sales revenues amounting to Ksh. 6.75 billion. Despite Nazir’s efforts, Russo remained committed to reducing KCB’s non-performing loans and did not deviate from his predecessor’s aggressive recovery policy.
The result was a bruising court battle between Pearl Beach Hotels and KCB, leading to the seizure of Pearl Beach’s second hotel, Diani-based Pinewood Beach Resort and Spa.
