File | NATION Attorney General Amos Wako and Ministers Moses Wetangula and Prof George Saitoti hand over a signed agreement to the ICC registrar Silvana Arbia during a press conference at Harambee House, Nairobi.
By MUGUMO MUNENE mmunene@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, September 17 2011 at 22:00
Posted Saturday, September 17 2011 at 22:00
IN SUMMARY
- The team will be granted right to carry firearms and enjoy wide privileges in the conduct of duty
An urgent move by the International Criminal Court (ICC) towards opening a field office in Nairobi is the clearest indication yet that the cases against the Ocampo Six could be confirmed.
The court’s registrar, Ms Silvana Arbia, visited the country last week and held high-level meetings to prepare the way for establishment of the ICC Outreach office in Kenya. A number of officers will be deployed to the new office.
Ms Arbia held private meetings last Wednesday with the Cabinet sub-committee on the ICC.
Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo confirmed to the Sunday Nation that the ICC would like to establish an outreach office in Kenya “right away”.
“They can only do Rome Statute work while they are here. It’s a real shame that we refused to set up a local tribunal in January 2009. It’s reckoning time now,” Mr Kilonzo said.
The officers will be granted the right to carry firearms and enjoy wide-ranging privileges while in the conduct of their duty.
The setting up of the office suggests that the registrar’s office expects that the court’s involvement with Kenya will last for a while longer.
“We emphasised that the government remains committed to the Rome treaty and to cooperate with the court. At the same time, the government expects our sovereignty and the integrity of the judicial processes to be respected,” one of the Cabinet members present but who requested anonymity because it was a closed-door meeting told theSunday Nation.
“We expect that we are going to be appraised of all developments so that the government can also play its part. We would not want to be addressed through the media,” he added.
The quiet visit by the registrar follows another she made one year ago at which she signed an MoU with the government that grants diplomatic privileges to such officers. The MoU grants ICC judges, prosecutors, investigators, administrators and other staff the same status enjoyed by foreign diplomats.
It gives them powers and privileges to move in and out of Kenya, the right to deploy its own armed officers, to import goods duty-free and enjoy protection against arrest and prosecution.
“The government accords the Court the right to use all means of communication including codes, cipher, courier or sealed bags for the dispatch and receipt of correspondence with the same privileges, immunities and facilities as diplomatic couriers and bags. No censorship shall be applied to official communications or correspondence of the Court and the Court shall have a right to operate radio and telecommunications equipment on any frequencies allocated to it by the Government of Kenya,” reads part of the MoU signed last year.
By signing the agreement, the government also implicitly gave permission to the ICC to set up a court in the country to try post-election violence suspects if it wanted.
The ICC has other field offices in Kampala, Kinshasa and Bunia in DRC and Abéché, Chad.
The visit by the ICC registrar came in the same week that international NGO Human Rights watch said that the delivery of justice at ICC is at risk despite progress by the prosecutor.
With the appointment of a replacement for Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo by year’s end and new cases in Libya, the ICC prosecutor should close gaps in investigation and prosecution strategies and bring additional cases.ime for top Kibaki men
The 50-page report, “Unfinished Business: Closing Gaps in the Selection of ICC Cases,” assesses the office of the prosecutor’s choice of cases in its first five investigations. ICC member countries will meet in December 2011 to elect the next ICC prosecutor, who is expected to take office in mid-2012.
Investigations in Central African Republic, Sudan’s Darfur region, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, and northern Uganda have yielded 10 cases and three trials, making an important contribution to tackling impunity for some of the world’s worst crimes.
But these cases have not gone far enough to ensure that justice delivered by the ICC will resonate with concerns of victims and affected communities.
ICC’s recent investigations in Kenya are a welcome shift from past practice, Human Rights Watch said. The prosecutor is seeking charges against alleged perpetrators affiliated with both sides of the country’s 2007-2008 post-election violence.
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