On Thursday, the Justice Aggrey Muchelule-led tribunal heard from a representative of Serena Hotel, where the infamous IEBC commissioners jointly referred to as “Cherera Four” held a presser to dispute the presidential election results in August.
Serena Hotel General Manager Anthony Chege told Justice Aggrey Muchelule that the hotel did not accommodate the four suspended IEBC commissioners on August 15.
He said the Cherera Four only used their facility for two press conferences, and were charged Sh60,000 for the service.
“None of the commissioners were accommodated within our facility between 15th and 16th of August 2022,” Chege said in a letter addressed to the tribunal’s Lead Counsel Peter Munge.
The general manager insisted that they are not responsible for the statements made by the Cherera Four.
“We, however, do not take any responsibility for the statements made. We charge Sh30,000 for a press conference at the hotel gardens. The requests for the press conferences on 15th and 16th of August 2022 were made at the reception. The payments were settled at the reception,” said Chege.
The Serena Hotel official said payments were made via M-Pesa at 5:12pm on August 15, 2022 by one Edwin Ogwe.
The following day, when the commissioners issued a follow-up press conference, Edwin Ogwe, again, paid Sh30,000 for access to the hotel gardens. The payment was made via M-Pesa at 2:32 pm that day.
On the tribunal’s request to have access to surveillance camera recordings for August 15 and August 16 at the Serena Hotel, Chege said: “Nairobi Serena Hotel has a very large number of cameras of high resolution, which require large storage capacity. The system overwrites after 30 days. The 4-month-old data is not recoverable.”
He added: “We remain available for any other information required.”
