Former head of civil service Francis Muthaura. Photo/FILE
By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Sunday, May 13 2012 at 20:42
Posted Sunday, May 13 2012 at 20:42
Lawyers representing former Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura scored a major victory when they secured the acquittal of a suspect who was charged with war crimes.
The war crimes court in Kosovo on May 2, 2012, cleared former Minister of Transport and Communication Fatmir Limaj of all counts of war crimes.
The prosecution had submitted that Limaj was the commander of a detention facility in which members of the Serb armed forces were executed and other civilians tortured during the 1998-1999 armed conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serbia army.
He was represented by Mr Karim Khan, Ms Shyamala Alagendra and Venkateswari Rohini Alagendra – who are also representing Mr Muthaura who is fighting crimes against humanity charges.
Mr Ken Ogeto, who was retained by top Rwandese government officials facing charges at the at Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, is the only Kenyan lawyer in the Muthaura defence team.
Others accused in the Kenyan cases are Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Eldoret North MP William Ruto and journalist Joshua arap Sang.
This is not the first time Mr Limaj has faced charges. In 2005, after a lengthy process before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), he was acquitted on all counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during the war.
Mr Khan, previously a prosecutor before the Arusha-based court, once represented Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba, former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, senior rebel commanders from Darfur and ancio Lopes de Carvalho, a militia commander implicated in the post -election violence in East Timor in 1999.
Before joining the Muthaura team, Ms Alagendra was one of the prosecutors in the ICC on the Darfur cases including the one against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir.
She had also prosecuted the case against Taylor who was April 26, 2012 convicted of war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Mr Limaj was a highly placed commander in the KLA in his twenties, when he returned from Switzerland to free his people free from Serb oppression.
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