Deputy President William Ruto now claims that he has strong evidence to show that local and international NGOs have a scheme to fabricate evidence against him at the ICC.
Ruto has now applied to the Trial Chamber V(a) to compel Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda put eight witnesses, whom he accuses of being coached to lie against him on the witness stand immediately after the opening statements at the onset of the trial.
"By calling these witnesses first, the Chamber will be able to chart the proper and just course of this trial from its outset and help prevent a miscarriage of justice," Ruto argued.
The Deputy President also wants the Prosecution's lead investigator put on the witness stand, as the ninth witness, for overseeing the selection process of the eight witnesses.
"This scheme links all eight witnesses. It has been years in the making and has been, or still is, supported by various international and domestic Kenyan organisations," Ruto's lawyer Karim Khan told the judges on Friday.
Khan added that the witnesses were part of a scheme to cook evidence against Ruto saying they must testify first so that the alleged scam can be unmasked at the earliest opportunity.
"To use a Kenyan colloquialism, based on witness statements and documents, the Defence has substantial grounds to believe that these eight key prosecution witnesses have been part of a deliberate and concerted scheme to "cook" evidence against Mr. Ruto," Khan said.
Ruto's defense lawyers also argued that the trial was likely to take a lot of time and that it would therefore be necessary to test the core of the case from the onset.
Khan added that the order that Ruto is proposing will protect the integrity of these proceedings and, thus, better assist the Trial Chamber to discharge its truth finding mandate.
"Defence investigations have revealed that these eight witnesses are engaged in a concerted process to contaminate Prosecution investigations to a significant extent through the deliberate and organised fabrication of evidence," Khan said.
The Deputy President further observed that it would be unfair to wait for a minimum of 160 hours as prosecution witnesses testify before even one defense principal witness is heard.
"The Prosecution case is scheduled to take approximately 726 hours, which, if the Court sits for five hours per day, amounts to 145.2 days. Accordingly, the Defence submits the core of the Prosecution case should be tested at the outset of trial particularly when the Defence has sound reasons to believe that this core is rotten," Ruto said.
Ruto and former journalist Joshua Sang trial is due to open on September 10 at the Hague while that of President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to kick off on November 12.
The prosecution has already dropped some of its witnesses due to inconsistencies in their testimonies with some coming out to say that they lied in their initial statements.
Last week, Bensouda notified the judges of the withdrawal of three witnesses in the case against Uhuru with the ICC saying that the prosecutor may have to look for new witnesses in the future.
"The prosecutor might seek to add other witnesses in the future if suitable replacements for these witnesses are forthcoming," ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah said.
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