Suspects drag Raila, Kibaki into chaos case

By Oscar Obonyo

They may have escaped mention by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo as post-election violence suspects, but President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga are destined to feature prominently in the confirmation hearings.

In fact Eldoret North MP William Ruto’s lawyer, Kioko Kilukumi, did not waste time last Thursday. He dragged in the PM’s name at the first opportunity when he addressed the court.

"In all statements, you will see one name – that of Raila Odinga. Witnesses even said he contributed money and yet he was left out and others brought before this court," said Ruto’s attorney.

Political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi believes President Kibaki will be next on the lips of the defence teams, when hearings against Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura and former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali come up later in the month.

Unlike Kibaki who will not be seeking re-election, attempts to drag Raila’s name to the proceedings at The Hague is bound to have an impact – negative or otherwise – on his presidential bid.

Initially, a key supporter of Raila in the Orange Democratic Movement, the Ruto-Raila political marriage ended a fortnight ago, when the PM formally kicked his ally turned foe out of the Cabinet.

The Eldoret North MP’s allies have curiously linked the PM to their man’s woes at The Hague, with some promising undisclosed retaliatory consequences. Political pundits say that politicising the entire process could be part of the Ruto plot.

"It is not by mistake that Raila’s name has been dropped in rather too early. The line of Ruto’s defence is that, ‘I was fighting for Raila and that he was the boss’," argues Martin Oloo, a Nairobi-based lawyer.

Play politics

But he faults this line of defence stating that what is at hand is a legal process that can only be executed according to the evidence.

"If you say that Raila’s name features in the case, that is rather expected, considering that he was leader of the Pentagon and a presidential candidate. But the argument you cannot make and possibly sustain is that the Pentagon was behind the skirmishes," observes the lawyer, a commentator on political issues.

Another lawyer, Harun Ndubi, is rather disappointed that the Ruto legal team was in a hurry to play politics. The whole idea behind confirmation hearings, he explains, is to establish whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain a charge.

"But I was somewhat disappointed by the contribution of my colleagues, who appeared to be in a hurry to pre-empt the prosecution’s case. Even then, Moreno-Ocampo has told us he was looking for criminal and not political responsibility," says Ndubi.

Nonetheless, the legal experts say that the notion of hiding behind the PM could be strategic – to poke holes in the Moreno-Ocampo evidence and portray his investigations as selective and politically motivated.

In contrast, Ruto’s defence team portrays him as a high-profile Kenyan with high political ambition.

And addressing the court on day two, his top lawyer, David Hooper, submitted that the idea behind the mention of Raila was not to implicate him, but rather "to question Ocampo’s judgement in disregarding crucial evidence".