Government of Kenya has not complied with prosecutor’s request for crucial documents.
The criminal case against Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court is likely to collapse after Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda for the second time conceded she does not have enough evidence to prove the charges.
In her notice to the court on Friday, Ms Bensouda told the judges to adjourn the trial of President Kenyatta, which was scheduled to commence on October 7, pending release of crucial documents her office had requested the Kenyan government to provide.
On August 28, Judges Kuniko Ozaki (presiding), Robert Fremr and Geoffrey Henderson ordered Ms Bensouda to state if she was ready for the trial of President Kenyatta within six days.
Admitting that the case against President Kenyatta has virtually collapsed, Ms Bensouda said withdrawal of the charges will set a bad precedent that encourages governments to refuse to co-operate with The Hague-based court.
“Under the circumstances, it would be inappropriate for the prosecution to withdraw the charges against Mr Kenyatta before the GoK complies with the revised request. First, doing so would undermine the purpose of the Chamber’s March 31 decision — to ensure that the GoK fulfils its co-operation,” said Ms Bensouda.
On March 31, the court adjourned the commencement date of the trial of President Kenyatta to provide the government with time to provide certain records that the prosecution had requested. The prosecution claimed that the records were relevant to a central allegation in the case.
The ICC Prosecutor had, in April, requested the Kenya government’s co-operation in obtaining the records of bank accounts held by President Kenyatta and his associates, foreign exchange transaction records, telephone records and M-Pesa transactions between June 1, 2007 and December 15, 2010.
She had also requested security and intelligence information records from the National Intelligence Service relating to President Kenyatta’s activities before and after the 2007/08 post-election violence.
With these, she hoped to flesh out fresh evidence to enable her to proceed with the trial. Five months later, she stated, the government has produced a total of 73 pages of documents, some of which are not what the prosecution requested.
Ms Bensouda’s efforts to prosecute President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto have been running into numerous hurdles, with the defence team accusing her office of coaching witnesses.
On Thursday, a witness recanted his statement, saying he was promised goodies by the office of the Prosecutor to testify against Mr Ruto.
The witness identified as P604 said the prosecution took advantage of his hatred of Mr Ruto to help it fix the deputy president.
The witness is one of eight prosecution witnesses the court had to compel to testify after they applied to be dropped.
