Youths brandish weapons at the height of the 2007/ 2008 post election violence at Karagita in Naivasha. Inset: ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno- Ocampo who on Decmber 2, 2010 repeated his promise to expose the masterminds of the post election violence in two weeks. Photo/FILE
By MUGUMO MUNENE mmunene@ke.nationmedia.comPosted Saturday, December 4 2010 at 22:34
Powerful people suspected to be on International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s list of the six most wanted over the 2008 post-election violence have launched last-ditch efforts to block the impending prosecutions.
The efforts, being played out in the courts, in Parliament and other forums, are meant to send out the message that “Kenya will not be the same” if top politicians implicated in the post-election violence are charged in The Hague.
It has also emerged that the country’s top leadership is under intense pressure over their stated commitment to support the ICC trials.
Sources familiar with State affairs told the Sunday Nation that President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga are under intense political pressure because the suspects are either present or past kingpins in their party machineries.
While addressing a gathering called to assess the progress of the grand coalition government in Nairobi on Wednesday, Mr Odinga said the ICC should not just investigate those who are suspected of planning the violence but also those behind the bungled election which led to the mayhem.
Difficult to prove
Two days later, Attorney General Amos told a gathering of civil society groups in the city that Mr Moreno-Ocampo may find it difficult to prove Kenya’s case at the ICC.
“Let me remind you, and in the process also remind the ICC, that the Waki Commission was not sure whether there was enough evidence to meet the threshold required by the ICC or whether the evidence it had collected and which was part of the Waki report was enough,” the AG said.
He argued that the Waki Commission had recommended further investigations into the violence as it did not have sufficient confidence in its report.
“At page 17 of the Waki report, it states and I quote ‘…it (the report) may even fall short of the proof required for international crimes against humanity. We believe, however, that the commission’s evidence forms a firm basis for more investigations on the alleged perpetrators,” said Mr Wako.
The two statements may pass as opinion but put in context they betray the inner feelings of the country’s leadership.
Sources familiar with the latest efforts to frustrate the ICC case say senior government officials were considering filing a case before the judges at The Hague seeking to stop the prosecution altogether.
The flurry of high-level activities — which may appear uncoordinated from the outside but which are being carefully executed — were touched off by the dawning reality that Mr Moreno-Ocampo will be filing his case in the next two weeks.
The prosecutor concluded his Kenyan visit on a day when three Kenyan police officers were executed in cold blood in Nairobi as were two civilians in Nakuru.
Although this might be a bad coincidence, the last time the prosecutor was in town, self-styled Mungiki spokesperson Njuguna Gitau Njuguna was gunned down in the city centre.
Last Thursday, a Cabinet minister widely believed to be on the list of the Famous Six, held a night-long meeting with his lawyers at a city hotel, seeking avenues to minimise damage or stopping the process altogether.
“The meeting was not meant to last long but it went well into Friday morning,” a source privy to the discussions said.
The meeting was followed by the filing of a suit by lawyers representing serving and former security chief who want ICC guarantees that their evidence will not be used against them.
The sources said that Mr Moreno-Ocampo should be prepared to face more Kenyan lawyers seeking to stop the prosecutions.
The Sunday Nation also established that the impending prosecutions had rekindled old wounds and rivalries in the ruling coalition.
On the parliamentary front, Chepalungu MP Isaac Ruto is said to be preparing to ask Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo to state whether he was aware that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights had prepared two reports, accusations that the rights body has rejected in the past.
Mr Ruto will also seek to know from Mr Kilonzo whether the government was aware that the human rights agency was coaching witnesses. The coaching accusations against the commission were first highlighted by Eldoret North MP William Ruto a month ago after a three-day meeting with ICC investigators at The Hague.
Two, men – Mr Ken Wekesa and Mr William Kipkemboi Rono – emerged to support the minister’s assertions and said they had been coached to implicate him.
The human rights agency, which had placed the two under a witness protection programme has rejected the claims that they coached the witnesses and instead asked that they be investigated to establish whether they committed a crime.
On the other hand, Mr Moreno-Ocampo has said that he was not relying on testimony from the two. CID director Ndegwa Muhoro has issued summons to KNCHR commissioner Omar Hassan but the latter has declined to honour them.
The exchange over the allegations of witness coaching came as lawyer David Koech, who represents the Mr Ruto (the Eldoret North MP) told an American news agency last week that they had identified six other witnesses who said they were ready to recant their statements in the coming days.
According to the lawyer, the six are on a witness protection programme in neighbouring Tanzania. Mr Ruto’s lawyers are said to have spent some time in Tanzania last week, probably trying to establish contact with the said witnesses.
Without specifying who he was referring to, Mr Moreno-Ocampo on Friday evening issued a statement saying that families of those believed to be his witnesses had been threatened.
“These threats will not stop the presentation of cases,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo said in a terse statement. “The prosecutor is identifying those who are organising such threats and will eventually request arrest warrants for individuals who persist on such threats.”
As the human rights commission came under attack, Mr Moreno Ocampo said that they had supplied useful information as had the Commission of Inquiry that was headed by appellate judge Philip Waki.
During the Wednesday meeting in Nairobi, Mr Odinga assured that the government was committed to the ICC process, saying that he believes that the stolen election was the trigger of the violence and those responsible should be punished.
“The violence was triggered by the dissatisfaction with the conduct of the election and this is, in my opinion, what made people rise up and protest. Let us, therefore, not lose sight of what triggered the violence,” Mr Odinga said.
But Mr Ocampo distanced the ICC from the proposal on the basis that he was pursuing evidence and not a political case.
“We are not investigating the elections. We are not analysing the political responsibilities. We are not making in judgment on the political parties. We are investigating the murders, rapes, forced displacements, which constitute crimes against humanity,” said the ICC Prosecutor.
At the end of his latest visit on Friday, Mr Annan said he was disturbed by the political twist that now surrounds investigations and processes of the ICC in the country.
Mr Annan who was addressing journalists after closing the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Accord review meeting said that the shift in focus would only worsen the complexities that the country faced in the forthcoming General Election.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment