Witness says he won’t see ICC lawyers

By JUSTUS WANGA jwanga@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Sunday, March 24  2013 at  00:30

A witness who recanted his earlier evidence in the William Ruto case at the ICC has now turned down requests by officers from the prosecutor’s office to meet him.

The Office of the Prosecutor had written to him to request a meeting after he changed his mind and decided not to testify against Mr Ruto.

Sunday Nation saw letters exchanged between the two parties which the witness’s lawyer Paul Gicheru distributed to the media on Saturday.

Through his lawyer, the witness says the court had requested to meet him after he withdrew from the case in an attempt to make him reconsider his decision.

“There have been concerted efforts, in fact desperate attempts by the Office of the Prosecutor to reach the former witness partly because they have realised that their case is crumbling,” the witness says.

In the letter, the former witness says that such a meeting would be inconsequential as he is no longer part of the case. In the same letter, Mr Gicheru, acting for his client, tells the Office of the Prosecutor that he does not have his client’s authority to arrange for any such meetings.

“In any event an advocate can only act on his client’s instructions; we do not have our client’s instruction to attend any meeting with you or your representatives. We shall therefore not be available for any meeting on 20-22 March 2013 or on any other date unless we are otherwise instructed by our client,” reads the letter. It is part of the correspondence between the two entities.

The former witness also takes issue with what he calls attempts by the Office of the Prosecutor to meet him directly, by-passing his lawyer.

“Despite my having instructed my lawyer that the ICC prosecutor or his officers should contact me through him, they have breached this, and in the last 24 hours they have made concerted efforts to physically contact me without the knowledge of my lawyer,” he claims.

The prosecutor’s office has, in turn, rejected the allegations contained in the letters saying they are baseless.

The witness, who recently made an about-turn, said through his lawyer that the alleged push by the prosecution to meet him alone might pose a threat to his life should they succeed.

Mr Gicheru said he plans to report the matter to the police but refused to have his client the witness appear in the media.