ODM Starehe MP candidate Steve Mbogo has moved to court seeking an order restraining four media houses from from running an alleged investigative story linking him to a defilement case.

Mbogo wants the court to issue an order prohibiting the Nation Media Group, the People Daily, the Standard Group and the Star newspaper from publishing the stories.

“Pending the hearing and determination of this application, an order of injunction be issued retraining the four media houses either in person or through an agent from serialising, covering or in any other manner reporting the proceedings, judgment or any other aspect touching on a Kibera chief magistrate criminal case and a Nairobi High Court criminal appeal,” the petition reads.

In the affidavit, Mbogo says he has received phone calls and text messages indicating that the media houses are working on an investigative story to link him to a defilement case that he was cleared of over five years ago.

“If that story is allowed to run, it will cause me untold suffering and prejudice since the general voting public will get the same through the media complex network that I cannot match in correcting the impression it will have caused,” he said.

Mbogo also said it is just and equitable and in the interest of fairness to him that the court restrains the media houses from running the story.

The affidavit he has sworn further says that Mbogo was charged with the offence of defilement in 2009 at the Kibera courts and the matter ended up at the High Court, where he was cleared of the defilement charges.

He says that following his clearance to run for the Starehe seat, “the media in apparent cahoots with my opponents have indicated they are working on the story”.

- The Star/ Annette Wambulwa