Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo/ FILE
By NATION REPORTER
Posted Monday, February 20 2012 at 22:30
Posted Monday, February 20 2012 at 22:30
The lead lawyer for Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has accused the International Criminal Court (ICC) of fixing the Kenyan case.
Prof Steven Kay, in a debate available online, also cast doubt on the ability of “show trials” to offer justice to victims of mass crimes as well as the suspects.
The lawyer was speaking in a public panel discussion at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on the topic “International Justice: Between Impunity and Show Trials”.
The ICC indicted Mr Kenyatta, Mr Francis Muthaura, who has stepped aside as Public Service head, Eldoret North MP William Ruto and journalist Joshua arap Sang for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 2007/8 violence.
Prof Kay said international tribunals were fixed, hostile to suspects and guided by powerful forces out to “make some individuals an example” as part of an international crusade against impunity.
“I’m afraid I saw that in the ‘organisational policy’ reasoning of the pre-trial chamber II on the Kenya case, because they stretched that definition in a way that no one had written about before,” he said.
A veteran of tribunals, Prof Kay read world politics in the Kenyan case.“Because they don’t like violence in elections in Africa, somebody has got to be made an example,” he told the audience last week.
However, Ms Polina Levina, part of the team that worked on the cases at the ICC prosecutor’s office, rejected Prof Kay’s argument that the court does not serve the interests of victims. She said the ICC had achieved what no Kenyan court could have done.
“For the first time, people who had packaged themselves as untouchables were brought to answer before a judge and the message was sent that everybody was subordinate to the law,” Ms Levina told the panel.
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