Julius Muraya joined the International Centre for Asset Recovery at the Basel Institute on Governance in January 2023 as a Senior Specialist, Asset Recovery. He is based in Zambia at the Anti-Corruption Commission, where he provides mentoring, technical advisory and training support to the Anti-Corruption Commission and other government partners in the fight against corruption and organised crime.
Julius is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya of over 30 years' standing. He has extensive experience in courtroom practice of public law with an emphasis on the seizure, confiscation and forfeiture of corruptly acquired assets.
He worked with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), Kenya for 16 years, where he served in different capacities in the investigations and asset recovery departments. In his position as the Deputy Director in charge of Civil Litigation and Asset Recovery at the EACC, he led asset recovery efforts with remarkable success. Among others, it was during his tenure that jurisprudence on unexplained wealth in Kenya was effectively applied; successfully concluded cases have since attracted international attention as exemplary case studies.
Julius has extensive hands-on experience in complex transnational financial investigations. He also served as head of the Mutual Legal Assistance Unit, where he prepared and coordinated the successful execution of dozens of mutual legal assistance as well as extradition requests in jurisdictions with varied legal systems, customs and practices. In November 2020, he co-chaired the Joint Technical Team sessions that negotiated Mutual Legal Assistance, Extradition, and Exchange of Prisoners Treaties between Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania. He was also a member of the Kenyan technical team that negotiated a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between Kenya and the United Arab Emirates as well as the People’s Republic of China.
He has widely trained and mentored practitioners in asset tracing and recovery skills. He has broad experience in public sector reforms, having been intensely engaged in the review of policy, legal and institutional frameworks in the fight against corruption and in strengthening public sector accountability frameworks. In recognition of his outstanding and distinguished service to the nation of Kenya, Julius received the Presidential award of the Order of Grand Warrior (OGW) in December 2018.
In February 2022, Julius joined the GIZ Global Program on Combating Illicit Financial Flows (GP-IFF) where served as Advisor for Africa. In this role, Julius worked closely with the relevant African Union bodies and pan-African practitioner networks to provide technical support aimed at implementing a coherent continental policy and operational response to the devastating effects of illicit financial flows on sustainable development.