Deputy President William Ruto’s counsel Karim Khan (left) at The Stanley Hotel on April 6, 2016 where he fielded questions from journalists after the ICC declared a mistrial in the DP and Joshua Sang’s cases. He was with Mr Sang’s lawyer Katwa Kigen. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Summary
- Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji spoke of “an aggressive political campaign” which the government waged against the ICC in his ruling.
- President Uhuru Kenyatta has denied there was political interference involved in the ICC cases.
- Kenya’s top diplomat used her position to convince nations of the world that Jubilee leadership was being targeted unfairly by the ICC.
In
his ruling on Tuesday, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, who headed the Trial
Chamber bench that handled the case against Mr Ruto and his co-accused
Joshua arap Sang, spoke of “an aggressive political campaign” which the
government waged against the ICC.
As
he sought to make his opinion on two issues, he remarked of the first
one: “One is the matter of the aggressive campaign that the government
involved itself in against this trial that was about the individual
responsibility of the accused.”
However, President Uhuru Kenyatta has denied there was political interference involved in the ICC cases.
“Throughout
the period, the prosecutor had free access to Kenya with the full
cooperation of the State despite the fact that I was President. A good
number of witnesses were based in Europe after being moved from Kenya,”
said the President.
While stating
that the role of the International Criminal Court was to help end the
“culture of political violence and impunity” that has taken root in
Kenya, the Judge urged the African Union (AU) and the United Nations
(UN) to be part of the solution — and not the problem.
ICC PULL OUT
But
the President, who is on a State visit to France, reiterated his call
for African nations to withdraw from the ICC, accusing the court of
bias.
“The ICC no longer follows the
basic tenets we all supported when it was being created. We as Kenyans
and Africans need to pull out because we cannot have a court that
pursues an agenda other than the one the court was created for.”
The President welcomed the dropping of cases as a vindication of the two accused.
“The
charges against us were trumped up charges. We were never supposed to
have been before that court. Seven and a half years later, our position
has been accepted by the court,” said Mr Kenyatta.
While
President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto rallied AU members, Kenya’s top
diplomat, Ms Amina Mohammed, used her position as Foreign Affairs
Cabinet Secretary to convince nations of the world at both continental
and international level that the Jubilee leadership was being targeted
unfairly by the ICC.
In court at the
ICC, top notch British or English educated lawyers with vast knowledge
and experience of The Hague — the best that money can buy — were hired
to lead the cases against the prosecutor.
President
Kenyatta was represented by lawyers Steven Kay, a Queens Counsel and
Gillian Higgins, who is described as a high-class lawyer at the ICC.
Mr
Ruto was represented by lawyer Karim Khan, a Queens Counsel, who is a
specialist in international criminal law with long experience on
ICC-related cases and lawyer David Hooper, who is described as “lawyer
with decades of experience in international criminal law”.
Wednesday,
ICC’s spokesman Fadi el Abdallah said: “The court by the nature of the
crimes under its jurisdiction, prosecutes high level personalities,
which creates a lot of media and diplomatic attention and positions.”
No comments:
Post a Comment