Win For Controversial Bishop Deya as Court Rules in his Child Theft Case

Controversial Bishop Gilbert Juma Deya has been cleared in a case where he is accused of stealing five children. 

Deya was facing five counts of stealing children.

Milimani senior principal magistrate Robison Ondieki while freeing Deya said the prosecution failed to prove a case against him. 

Justice Ondieki said none of the evidence produced in the court placed the suspect at the scene where the victims were found. 

"The prosecution having failed to establish circumstantial evidence, I acquit the accused under section 250 of the CPC, " the magistrate rule.

Deya is a stonemason turned evangelist who lived in Britain from the mid-1990s until 2017.

He was an evangelist in Kenya in the late 1980s to early 1990s, but moved to the UK, establishing Gilbert Deya Ministries in 1997.

He was extradited to Kenya in 2017 to face charges of stealing five children between 1999 and 2004.

The Bishop has faced a number of controversial cases including rape.

In 2013 Deya was arrested in the UK and charged with raping and attempting to rape a woman and sexually assaulting a teenage girl. He was found not guilty on all counts in 2014.

The church was placed under formal investigations by the Charity Commission in 2004 and again in 2016. The commission appointed Interim Managers in March 2021 to manage the affairs of the charity.