Speaking during a meeting with youths and leaders at Kampi ya Moto in Rongai, Nakuru County, she dispelled fears the four Kenyans would be detained when they appear for their cases.
On Tuesday, Sang’s defence lawyer Katwa Kigen said it clearly shows that the prosecution was not yet ready for the hearing. “Having the cases heard next year shows that the prosecution either wants to improve on its witnesses or analyse its documents first,” he argued.
“For Sang, even if we were called tomorrow, we are ready for the hearing,” he declared.
Katwa told The Standard the defence team is prepared to oppose moves by the prosecution to ‘re-characterise’ charges against some of the suspects.
The defence teams say they are opposed to the prosecution’s move to add alternative charges to those in the Document Containing Charges confirmed by Pre-Trial Chamber II.
Katwa said they were only waiting for the prosecution to file its application to raise its opposition.
“The safest thing is to wait for the application to be filed. I can assure you that it would be opposed by the defence teams,” Katwa went on.
Security of witnesses
The prosecution is already conducting further investigations in Kenya to tie up what they describe as matters arising since the crime against humanity charges were confirmed against the suspects.
Although the prosecution claims its key concerns are security of witnesses, the defence says they are not since it had access to witnesses over the last three years, and in fact relocated key witnesses to secret locations. Other points of disagreement include the disclosure of all materials and evidence, which the prosecution says will not be complete until early next year.
“The end of this year would be a very ambitious timeline because we still have witness security issues, but we want to start as soon as possible,” said the lead prosecutor on the Uhuru and Muthaura case, Adeboye Akingbolahan.
The prosecutor said they would have been ready to start the trials by end of this year, save for the issues regarding reduction of evidence, disclosure, and protection of witnesses.
