Homes were marked for burning, ICC told

By Walter Menya, Tuesday, October 22, 2013 The fifth prosecution witness Tuesday told the ICC that homesteads and farms belonging to non-Kikuyu families were marked “ODM 41” to signal to attackers which ones to spare from being burnt.

Prosecution witness 487 also told the Trial Chamber V (a) that an Eldoret businessman had provided trucks to ferry the attackers to the witness’s village after the presidential election results were announced on December 31, 2007.

Before the elections, the witness said, about 50 Kalenjin youths had been taken to a bush for an initiation ceremony. The prosecution holds that there was training of the youths who were also given oaths to take part in the violence.

The witness who continued with his testimony-in-chief for the second day Tuesday said Mr Jackson Kibor was the owner of two of the trucks that were ferrying youths who attacked his village.

The number of attackers, he said, kept growing forcing non-Kalenjins to leave their homes. At one point, the witness said, they were surrounded by the youths who had taken positions on a raised ground and were only rescued when police officers on a regular patrol shot one of the attackers dead.

Question: Did you know those lorries belonged to whom?

Witness: “At that time, I did not know who the lorries (trucks) belonged to but when the things cooled, I came to know they belonged to Eldoret businessman Jackson Kibor.

Question: Did you say they (trucks) belonged to Jackson Kibor?

Witness: Yes.

Question: Did you know him before?

Witness: I did not know him before.

The witness said the trucks made a number of trips from morning until late in the afternoon, ferrying youths whose numbers kept on growing and who surrounded their village.

He also said he had started spotting the trucks in the morning of December 31, 2007. One of the trucks was white while the other was cream.

“There were no women. Most of them were youths. They were not old according to how they were jumping off the lorries,” he said of the people that were emerging from the trucks.

The witness also said that after the election results were announced, non-Kikuyu homesteads and plots were marked so that the attackers could easily identify them as belonging to either Kalenjins or other communities in the location that supported ODM.

The marks were placed on the gates and nearby posts.

“The plots that belonged to non-Kikuyus were marked with sign “ODM 41”. Houses that did not have the sign were set on fire,” the witness said.

“That sign was written at the gate. If the plot had no gate you could see it written on the post,” he added.

Judge Osuji asked: In your neighbourhood where you lived what were the ethnicities?

And the witness replied: Majority were Kalenjins, there were also Luhyas and a few Luos.

Judge Osuji: Did you see ‘ODM 41’ before all hell broke loose on your neighbours’ plots?

Witness: At location 2, I did not see it.

The witness said that with all the running he lost touch with some of his close relatives whom he later found at a church where they had gone to seek refuge.

Earlier, during the morning session, the witness had said that between November 27 and 28, 2007, he had spotted a number of Kalenjin youths heading to a bush for initiation.

“When they came out, I remember I saw them move towards a place that had been prepared. When they came out they put on ordinary clothes,” he said.

The trial lawyer, Mr Ade Omofade, has indicated he will finish the examination-in-chief of the witness today after which the defence of Deputy President William Ruto and his co-accused, Joshua arap Sang will take over.