Ruto heads to The Hague

Written By:Lilian Mwendo,    Posted: Tue, Aug 30, 2011

Ruto said his trips to The Hague were meant to set the record straight on the lies and falsehoods leveled against him The International Criminal Court (ICC) will on Tuesday afternoon rule on an application by the Kenyan government seeking to take back cases related to the post election violence. Kenya wants the cases declared inadmissible before the ICC. The verdict comes just a day before the confirmation of charges hearings for three of the Ocampo 6 suspects, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey and Radio presenter Joshua Arap Sang. Ruto left the country early Tuesday morning for The Hague while Kosgey is expected to leave Tuesday evening to join Sang who left the country on Sunday. Accompanied by a few friends and family, the Eldoret North legislator left the country at 8a.m. headed to The Hague for the hearings scheduled to start on Thursday the 1st of September and end on the 12th of the same month But before embarking on his journey to Europe he had a message, saying he was only making the trips so as to set the record straight on the lies and falsehoods that have been leveled against him. In a short brief to newsrooms, the ICC purports that in his capacity as the highest profiled Kalenjin leader, Ruto provided essential contributions to the implementation of the common plan by way of organizing and coordinating the commission of widespread and systematic attacks that meet the threshold of crimes against humanity. The court alleges that Ruto planned and was responsible for the implementation of the common plan in the entire Rift valley, created a network of perpetrators to support the implementation of the common plan, directly negotiated or supervised the purchase of guns and crude weapons. He is also accused of giving instructions to the perpetrators as to who they had to kill and displace and whose property they had to destroy and established a rewarding mechanism with fixed amounts of money to be paid to the perpetrators upon the successful murder of PNU supporters or destruction of their properties. Ruto has however denied all the charges. On Thursday, the ICC will conduct a hearing to confirm if he has a case to answer depending on the evidence that the prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has gathered. But before the hearings the Appeals Chamber will rule on the jurisdiction of the court in handling the cases following an application by the Kenyan government challenging its admissibility. If the court rules in favor of the government, then the ICC will stop all the proceedings and Ruto, Kosgey and Sang will travel back home; but if the chamber rejects the application then the proceedings will continue.