Assurances that Deputy President William Ruto's trial will go on recess three weeks after the September 10 start date will be a relief as it means he will be able to attend to his constitutional obligations.
Both defense lawyer Karim Khan and victims' lawyer Wilfred Nderitu confirmed that the first phase of the trial will run up to October 4 before taking going into a short recess. Another status conference will be convened to plan for the second phase of the trial. The time frame was agreed on during a status conference convened early last week.
Ruto and former radio broadcaster Joshua Sang are facing three counts of crimes against humanity and are expected to be present during the trial that will be held daily between 10 am and 4.30pm starting September 10. No sessions will be held over the weekend, Khan said during an interview with the Citizen TV.
Nderitu said it was difficult to estimate how long the recess would be as this will depend on several factors including the availability of courtrooms, the proceedings of other ongoing cases, the opening of President Uhuru Kenyatta's case and the Christmas break.
Similar recesses in past cases have ranged between two and three months usually after court sessions of between five to six weeks.
The court has only two courtrooms. The trial against Congolese Jean-Pierre Bemba is ongoing while confirmation of charges against another Congolese, Bosco Ntaganda case will begin in February next year. A few months later, the trial against two Sudanese, Abdalla Banda and Saleh Mohamed Jerbo is expected to start. President Uhuru is expected to gon on trial on November 12.
All the factors will however be discussed at the status conference in which all parties in the case including the registry will be present.
Last week, the ICC Appeals chamber overturned the trial magistrates' decision allowing Ruto to attend some but not all of the court sessions once his trial starts. Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda filed an application against this which is now under consideration by the Appeals' chamber. Until it rules on the application, The Appeals chamber ordered Ruto to be present at all times during the trial.
Yesterday, ICC Outreach Coordinator in Kenya Mariah Kamara explained that Ruto's presence in the Hague will be determined by the court schedule.
“Mr Ruto is not requested to stay in the Hague until the Appeals Chamber issues its decision, in a reasonable time. He is only requested, for the time being, to attend the hearings when they are held, so his presence will depend on the hearings schedule that will be decided by the Trial Chamber,” she said.
Ruto last week applied to the court to vary its sittings on a two-weeks-on and two-weeks-off basis to enable him attend to his constitutional duties. The application is yet to be determined.
Ruto's application was made amid fears that his case and that of President Uhuru would at one time or another coincide and lead to a situation where both of them aware away for a long period of time.
Yesterday, Nderitu dismissed such fears saying this was unlikely unless the two chambers hearing the Kenya cases were made distinct.
“There are three judges who sit in both cases and therefore this may present difficulties.The only way of having the two cases at the same time is by conducting trial for one case in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Half day for one case and half day for the other is not a possibility... because then again the judges who sit in both cases would be worn out in the process,” he said.
Ruto had cited the lack of adequate court room space as one of the grounds for requesting that his case be heard on a two-week-on, two-week-off basis. “The physical constraints of courtroom space means that some flexibility in case scheduling will be required in any event. The Court does not have the physical capacity in terms of court space to have consecutive sittings in all its cases between now and the end of the trial in this case,” the application by Khan read.
Yesterday, International Centre for Policy and Conflict urged both Ruto and Uhuru to respect and fully cooperate with the court through out their trial as the cases facing them were "personal criminal responsibility and not state or institutional responsibility. "
Wainaina urged the two not to "drag the country into the cases" and warned against the government spending public resources for "personal criminal responsibility matters.”
Uhuru has severally insisted that the ICC case was a “personal challenge” and given assurances that he will co-operate with the court.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment