Kenya: The Hague Beckons for Post-poll Ring Leaders

By Eric Sande

THE HAGUE----The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in a video recording played to journalists at a media workshop in Nairobi on Tuesday November 17, made it clear that he had identified six individuals against whom he will be seeking the court’s permission to prosecute before the end of the year.

The six Kenyans most of who are said to be leaders and prominent business men, are accused of inciting communities against each other and some others accused of funding their political supporters to carry out revenge attacks. They will know their fate after the judges reveal their verdict on the prosecutor’s submissions. Moreno-Ocampo said he would be appearing before the judges soon to present the Kenyan case, with the evidence linking the six to the violence that left 1,300 people dead and 650,000 displaced.

Moreno-Ocampo has for the first time revealed some of the criteria he was using to pinpoint suspects he wants to blame for the 2007 post-election violence. He pointed out that the suspects will be drawn from both the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

 "We’ll prove that some leaders from both parties, both sides, were abusing the loyalty of their communities to attack others,” he said in the video address. “This will never happen again”.

“For the last months we were collecting evidence to present the case before the judges who will review our application and decide,” he said. “The crimes committed were serious,” Mr Ocampo went on.  “They were not just crimes against one community or Kenya; but crimes against humanity and justice has to be done.”

“This is why the ICC is important,” he added. 

Two ICC representatives in the country Molitor and Fletcher said that ICC was no longer relying on the evidence presented to them by the Philip Waki Commission, or the report compiled by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), but on the evidence gathered by its own investigators.

Eldoret North MP William Ruto and Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta unsuccessfully went to court to have their names expunged from the KNCHR report. The announcement by the ICC will definitely send shockwaves across the political divide.

 A good number of politicians are also trying to unmask the identities of possible witnesses who may give evidence against them at The Hague. Concerns are being raised at the court for the safety of witnesses, and most of them have already been flown out of the country.