A lawyer in Kakamega County has sued Mumias East MP Peter Salasya for allegedly attacking him physically and verbally for handling a case in which the legislator is accused of failing to pay back a loan of Ksh.500,000 given to him during the August 2022 elections.
Lawyer Edwin Wawire Wafula moved to court accusing Salasya of attacking him on two different occasions on Thursday this week within Kakamega for representing the alleged creditor, Robert Malenya Lutta.
In the first incident, the lawyer says Salasya insulted and threatened him while at Vovo Hotel at around 6pm, before later physically attacking him at Vault Hotel.
He says in the two instances, the respective hotel managements came to his rescue and kicked MP Salasya out of the premises.
The lawyer later filed a report at Kakamega Police Station accusing the lawmaker of attempting to damage his reputation and threatening his life.
“The words uttered by Mr Salasya in public, in their natural meaning, depict me as a conman, a stupid man, a fraudster, a satanic man and a man with no integrity. I, therefore, want him to define these words before the Small Claims Court because they were not only defamatory but amount to threats,” the lawyer said, as quoted by the Nation.
In the suit against the MP filed at the Small Claims Court, Resident Magistrate Gladys Kiama on October 30, 2023, had asked lawyer Wafula to serve the MP with the summoning letter for him to appear in court on November 8.
The creditor, who says he was once Salasya’s friend, claimed he had given the legislator Ksh.500,000 then for campaigns to repay in a span of two months, which he failed to do.
“We were good friends for so many years and when Mr Salasya, who was contesting for the Mumias East Parliamentary seat requested me to fund his bid. I advanced him the amount on December 13 last year,” stated Lutta.
He also says an earlier out-of-court application for the MP to settle the debt hit a brick wall.
