Another Uhuru Kenyatta meeting called at ICC

President Uhuru Kenyatta, then Deputy Prime Minister, arrives at the ICC for the confirmation of charges hearing in The Hague in September 2011.  [Photo: File/Standard]

By Felix Olick                                    

Nairobi, Kenya: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has convened another critical meeting in The Hague to deliberate over the future of the case against President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Attorney General Githu Muigai, who is the Government representative at the ICC, has been invited for the status conference scheduled for Thursday next week.

“The parties, the Legal Representative for Victims and a representative of the Kenya Government, are invited to attend. The discussion will, in principle, take place in public session,” the three-judge bench said yesterday.

During the meeting, judges will take oral submissions following complaints by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that the Government had failed to provide key evidence by clinging on to the financial records of President Kenyatta.

Bensouda wants the judges to adjourn the case until the Government complies with her request even as Uhuru fights to have the proceedings terminated.

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“Withdrawing the charges now would reward the accused, who heads the Government that has obstructed the court’s work, and who is in a position to ensure that the GoK compiles with its treaty obligations, if he wishes to do so,” Bensouda maintained in one of her filings.

Prof Muigai wants to be allowed to respond to allegations by the Prosecution by ‘setting the record straight’ on the provisions of the Kenyan Constitution and the International Crimes Act.

He also wants to make submissions on the role of the President vis-a-vis other constitutional bodies concerning the issue of co-operation as well as separation of powers and independence of various organs of Government. The new meeting comes on the heels of another one held on Wednesday, when Uhuru’s defence team pleaded to terminate the case.

“We repeatedly alerted the court and the prosecutor as to the inconsistencies and falsity of the evidence upon which they were seeking to relay. Our warnings were not heeded,” Uhuru’s lawyer Stephen Kay said.