George Kegoro Executive Director ICJ Kenya during the media briefing on Leadership and Integrity Campaign Financing Bills media briefing at Stanley hotel yesterday photo\KARUGA WA NJUGUNA
PRESIDENT Kibaki is part of the plan to shield deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP from ICC trials next year, a lobby group has claimed.
The International Commission of Jurists (Kenya chapter) is also accusing Prime Minister Raila Odinga of wavering in his support for the ICC process.
Addressing a gathering of civil society members and diplomats last week, ICJ executive director George Kegoro said the sustained bid by Uhuru and Ruto to clinch the presidency in the March 4, 2013 polls is calculated at frustrating the ICC.
Both Uhuru and Ruto are facing crimes against humanity charges at the ICC over the 2007 post election violence. They are charged alongside former head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura and radio journalist Joshua Sang.
“The political endeavors of Kenyatta and Ruto, with the apparent support of Kibaki, are designed to shield the two from trial and to undermine Kenya's capacity to cooperate with the ICC,” Kegoro said.
Kegoro said Raila's position as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections has reduced his appetite “for the kind of political risks attendant on outright support for the ICC.”
He said Ruto and Uhuru are linking their cases to the election in was a deliberate effort to increase their political support. They will then after the election seek a political deal entailing “some kind of protection from the ICC.”
He said all this in a presentation of his paper titled “A Fractious Relationship: Africa and The International Criminal Court” also attended by diplomats.
Kegoro said Uhuru and Ruto have decided to “ride their luck” as far as ICC cases are concerned.
“Electing the two politicians will amount to impunity of the highest order. Chapter Six of the Kenyan constitution has set high standards for the character of the person who should hold such high profile public office,” Kegoro said.
A case to determine whether the two can ran for presidency is pending in the courts.
He further claimed that if either of the two successfully run for president, it is likely that the winner will use his position to control the responses of the government to the ICC intervention.
“Both men are indifferent to the fact that this would significantly affect the country’s international standing,” said Kegoro.
Sang who had declared his interest to run for Trans Nzoia county senate has since pulled opting to concentrate on his defence at the ICC.
Kegoro’s statement echo the concerns also expressed by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan who recently warned that electing people facing charges at the ICC would have implications on Kenya’s foreign relations.
Both Ruto and Uhuru have repeatedly stated that they will fully cooperate with the ICC even if either of them wins presidency.
A week ago, during an interview with BBC, Ruto reiterated that both he and Uhuru will cooperate with ICC as they have done in the past even if either of them is elected president.
“I do not see any of the circumstances that we attached to our trial changing and therefore there will be absolutely no reason for anybody to change the parameters of the way this case is being conducted. To the best of my knowledge we will appear in The Hague and as has happened in the past, the case will proceed. We will be required once in a while to be personally present in court which we will and the rest of the time conduct our business,” said Ruto.
Last Wednesday, Ruto said if he was elected president, he would be able to run the country using information technology even while he was at the Hague.
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who was in Kenya the whole of last week said Ruto and Uhuru will not get any respite over the charges even if they win the next elections.
She said the trials will continue irrespective of the outcome of the elections adding that the ICC judges have substantial evidence against the two.
Bensouda however expressed her disappointment over what she has referred to as 'failure by the government to fully cooperate with her office.'
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