NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 28 — The Court of Appeal has quashed the conviction of two Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) elders who had been found guilty of forcible detainer in a long-running land dispute with a private company.A three-judge bench comprising Justices Patrick Kiage, Jamila Mohammed, and Weldon Korir ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the elders, Charles Thiru Njoka and Florence Mwamunga, illegally occupied the disputed parcel in Kayole, Nairobi.“We do not think that, from the record, the prosecution met the threshold of proving beyond reasonable doubt the charge of forcible detainer against the appellants,” the judges held in a decision rendered on Friday. “The conviction of the appellants on that charge was therefore not safe.”The two elders were convicted in 2015 and placed on probation for one year after the Magistrate’s Court found them guilty of occupying land owned by Micro Forms Limited without color of right. The High Court upheld the conviction, prompting the appeal.In their defense, the elders argued that they had followed due process in seeking allocation of the land for church use and that the property in question was a public utility reserved for a nursery school. A forensic document examiner also cast doubt on the authenticity of the allotment documents presented by the complainant.The appellate judges agreed that ownership of the land was in dispute and ruled that the PCEA elders had at least a “color of right” to occupy it.“In the result, we quash the appellants’ conviction, set aside the sentence, although it was already served, thereby clearing the good names of these church elders,” the court stated.