Kenyan victims of 2007 violence complain after president's trial delayed

Daniel Howden in Nairobi, The Guardian - ‎Thursday‎, ‎31‎ ‎October‎ ‎2013

 

 

 

 

International criminal court puts Uhuru Kenyatta's trial back for third time as country tries to avoid seeing leader in dock
 
Victims of the post-election violence that swept Kenya at the end of 2007 have complained after the international criminal court delayed the trial of the country's president Uhuru Kenyatta until next year. It was the third time that the prosecution has been postponed, this time moved from 12 November to 5 February. The ruling comes amid frantic diplomatic efforts by Kenya to avoid having its president put in the dock at The Hague.
"The victims are angry," said Fergal Gaynor, a lawyer appointed by the ICC to represent 20,000 ordinary Kenyans who lost homes, livelihoods and loved-ones during orchestrated ethnic clashes where 1,300 people died.

"By the time this starts he will have been committed to trial for more than two years. Meanwhile the victims are sitting there in abject poverty and have not received any compensation."
Kenyatta, who would be the first sitting head of state to be put on trial at the ICC, faces five counts of crimes against humanity linked to his alleged role in commissioning and directing the mayhem that followed a disputed election in December 2007.
The ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said she "did not oppose" the defence's application for a postponement. She is seeking to introduce new witnesses to replace several who have withdrawn and possibly add to existing charges which would not be admissible until February.
The son of Kenya's founding president allied with a former political rival and fellow ICC indictee to win election in March this year. His deputy president, William Ruto, is already on trial in a separate but related case. Their election campaign leaned on nationalist rhetoric but stopped short of threats to withdraw cooperation.
Since taking office that stance has shifted with recent the president saying he is no longer a private citizen and casting the ICC as a sovereignty issue.
The Kenyan government has made an urgent application to the UN Security Council demanding a 12-month deferral of both cases on the grounds that current heads of state should be immune from prosecution. This call won backing earlier this month from the African Union, which has accused the ICC of "hunting Africans".
Diplomats close to the application, which will be voted on Friday, said it was unlikely to succeed. It would need nine votes in the 15-member council to pass and seven of the states are parties to the Rome statute that established the ICC.
"They just don't have the maths," said one European diplomat.
The prosecutor's office hit out earlier this year at what they described as an unprecedented campaign of witness intimidation and bribery. The Hague-based tribunal has issued a warrant for the arrest of Lucas Barasa, a Kenyan former journalist whom it accuses of illegally approaching witnesses, but he has not been detained.