Kenyan lawyers mum during court session

Saturday, 09 April 2011 00:03 BY NZAU MUSAU

THE initial appearances of the six suspects of post-election violence at the ICC closed yesterday without a single Kenyan lawyer uttering a word. Only the foreign lawyers contracted by the three suspects contributed in some way to the appearances, the star being Ambassador Francis Muthaura’s Karim Ahmad Khan.
Khan did not miss an opportunity yesterday to exonerate his client from a general comment by judge Ekaterina Trendafilova warning the six against dangerous speeches. He claimed he was merely re-assuring the court of his client’s commitment to obey the conditions imposed on him.
And so did Hussein Ali’s Gregory Kehoe who insisted on knowing the number of pages the documents Ocampo intends to use be availed “because a document might as well contain two pages or 5000 pages”.
The only Kenyan lawyer who spoke at the court was George Oraro and only when introducing his assisting counsels. Alongside Allan Kosgey and Julius Kemboy, Oraro is representing Henry Kosgey.
Other Kenyan lawyers are Katwa Kigen, Kithure Kindiki and Kioko Kilukumi for William Ruto, Kimutai Bosek and Kiptum Koech-Busienei for Joshua arap Sang, Evans Monari for Hussein Ali and Ken Ogeto and Muriuki Mugambi for Muthaura.
Ruto’s foreign lawyer David Hooper starred in Thursday’s appearance. He said he could not comment on the date set for the confirmation of hearings since he had been involved in resolving on it in the first place.
He expressed satisfaction that the court had deemed itself “flexible” in terms of the September 1 date and complained that although he was the duly chosen counsel for Ruto, the court orderlies had not recognised this.