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Uhuru Kenyatta

The HAGUE. — Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s defence team said yesterday his crimes against humanity case before the International Criminal Court “has collapsed”, as judges mulled dropping the high-profile trial. “The prosecution has realised that its case has collapsed,” lawyer Steven Kay told judges in The Hague, where Kenyatta faces charges for his role in the deadly 2007-08 post-poll violence that rocked the east African country.

The ICC last month postponed Kenyatta’s trial after prosecutors said they no longer had enough evidence to put him in the dock.

Kenya’s top politician was supposed to go on trial yesterday, but instead judges were listening to arguments on whether to withdraw the charges. Kenyatta (52), is facing five counts of crimes against humanity allegedly committed under his direction in the aftermath of the disputed elections, in which prosecutors say more than 1,100 people died.

In an apparent last bid to keep the case alive, prosecutors now want judges to rule that Nairobi has failed to co-operate with their investigation especially in their request for financial statements which they say could prove Kenyatta’s role in funding the violence.

Prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert said the investigation against Kenyatta had run into a brick wall and that a last avenue was to force Nairobi to hand over Kenyatta’s financial records.

“I don’t rule out the possibility that full disclosure of Mr Kenyatta’s financial records, if indeed our case theory is correct… might be sufficient for the case to be brought.”

But he added: “That really is just the wildest speculation.”Kenyatta’s lawyer Kay called the prosecution’s submission a “blame-shifting exercise onto the Kenyan state at the expense of the prosecution”.

Kenyatta’s trial and that of his rival-turned-partner, Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, who faces similar charges, have been dogged by problems and delays.

“The bottom line is that (Kenyatta’s) government continues to thwart the prosecution’s efforts to obtain information that may shed light on key allegations in this case,” ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a court document last Friday.

Kenyatta’s lawyers have previously asked the ICC to drop the charges.
A lawyer representing the victims of the Kenyan violence blamed Kenya and Kenyatta for obstructing the case.

“Vast sections of the (Kenyan) state apparatus were mobilised in a vigorous and energetic defence of the rights of those. . . Kenyans standing trial before the court, totally ignoring the rights of hundreds of thousands of Kenyan victims of the post-election violence,” Fergal Gaynor said.

“Instead of acting to secure justice for the victims. . .  the accused (Kenyatta) instead took steps to frustrate their search for the truth,” he added.

African leaders frequently complain that the ICC discriminates against their continent.
Arguments include allegations that the court is targeting Africans and that Kenya’s leaders need to be available to tackle Al-Qaeda-linked militants who have turned neighbouring Somalia into a major global jihadist hub.— AFP.