International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Fatou
Bensouda has termed the collapse of the case against Kenya’s President
Uhuru Kenyatta the worst moment for victims of crimes.
Ms
Bensouda who was a guest on the ‘The Interview’ show on France 24 said
she did not see the loss of the case against the Kenyan President as a
humiliation to the court either, but an issue of evidence.
“I
do not think it is a humiliation, the court is not there just to
prosecute people, we move based on evidence. If we have the evidence we
bring it before the judges,” she stated.
“If we lose
the evidence as happened in the Kenyatta case I cannot, as a responsible
prosecutor, stand before the judges and say we are going to proceed
with the case,” she said.
She said in the interview
with the Paris based France 24 that she would not hesitate to open fresh
charges against Mr Kenyatta if her office receives new evidence that
can enable it to bring back the case.
“Mr Kenyatta has
not been acquitted by the court, it is not an acquittal it is a
withdrawal of charges and this has to be clear,” she said.
“If
there is new evidence or similar evidence that we can use to bring the
case back it will be brought back,” she said on the news channel.
CASE ONLY WITHDRAWN
The
ICC Prosecutor made it clear that the charges against Mr Kenyatta had
only been withdrawn and that he had not been acquitted.
The Court announced its decision to formally drop charges
against President Kenyatta three weeks ago but left the doors open for a
case in future.
President Kenyatta was accused of crimes against humanity in connection with the 2007 post-election violence.
The Hague-based court withdrew charges against him in 2014 due to lack of supporting evidence.
His deputy William Ruto and former radio journalist Joshua arap Sang still have a case going on at ICC.
Mr
Ruto faces charges of being criminally responsible as an indirect
co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity of murder, forcible transfer
of population and persecution while Mr Sang is charged with having
contributed to the commission of the same crimes against humanity.
Trial
proceedings, however, slowed down last week after the 30th witness in
the case declined to testify citing danger to his life and family.
In
the interview with the France broadcaster, Ms Bensouda said the loss of
the evidence against the Kenyan president was not a fault of her
office.
“I would not say the loss of the case was the
worst day for the court I would say worst day for the victims of this
crimes,” she said.
Ms Bensouda insisted that there was a
lot of interference with witnesses in the case and tampering of
evidence which resulted in its collapse.
No comments:
Post a Comment