BLOGGER Dennis Itumbi may sue the ICC over his arrest in March. His lawyer Nick Kaufman yesterday told the Star that last week's failure by Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to confirm whether she was investigating Itumbi struck him as “bizzare for some reasons.” He said in contrast, Bensouda was not secretive in investigating Ugandan David Matsanga as shown by an official public filing last week.
He wondered why Itumbi is being kept guessing. Itumbi was arrested in March allegedly following ICC complaints that he had hacked into their system and accessed confidential material related to witnesses. He was released without being charged.
“As a basic principle of international human rights law, law enforcers have an obligation to inform a detainee of the legal basis for his arrest. The Kenyan authorities told Dennis that he was being arrested pursuant to instructions received from the ICC, yet was shown no ICC court decision ordering his questioning, let alone his arrest,” Kaufman said.
“We are considering the legal options open to us and are not ruling out petitioning the Pre-Trial Chamber dealing with the Kenya Situation,' Kaufman said. He said he cannot neglect comments attributed to former prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo “who with his habitual street “eloquence” made no secret of the fact that he was going to "get those bloggers".
He said he has been led to troubling conclusion that either the Kenyan authorities wrongly informed Itumbi as to the reasons behind his arrest or that he was arrested in connection with an ICC investigation on the basis of an informally communicated wish of Ocampo. Kaufman said if the latter is the case, the procedure followed was wrong because the Rules of Procedure of the ICC specifically state that a request for state party cooperation requires court approval.
Either way, Itumbi has a right to pursue the matter internationally or domestically. “We are considering the legal options open to us and are not ruling out petitioning the Pre-Trial Chamber dealing with the Kenya Situation,' Kaufman said. Last week, Kaufman asked Bensouda to confirm if she was investigating Itumbi over offences relating to administration of justice. Bensouda said she was not under any obligation to confirm or deny.
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