ICC shown satellite evidence of Eldoret arson

By Wahome Thuku

Kenya: Evidence of arson and massive destruction of property during the 2007/2008 post-election violence was adduced through satellite images exhibited before the International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday.

The evidence was produced by Prosecution witness Lars Bromley, an American satellite imagery expert, who was contracted to collect the evidence in 2012.

From the images, the witness said he had concluded that about 696 structures had been destroyed within Eldoret on January 4, 2008. Out of these he counted 506, which he said he was certain they had been destroyed, and 190 that may have also been destroyed though he was not certain.

Bromley, an employee of the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT), was called in as an expert witness in the trial of Deputy President William Ruto and radio journalists Joshua Sang.

He produced evidence showing there was spike of fire in Eldoret and the neighbouring areas on January 1 and 2, 2008 which had been detected though Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), a US scientific instrument for capturing such data on planet earth.

Fires detected

He, however said he could not tell what had started the fires. He said he had collected evidence on fires detected in Eldoret area over a period of 10 years for comparison.

Bromley was mandated by the Hague-based court to research and examine satellite data indicating large gatherings, movements of objects, vehicles and destruction of structures within areas specified by the Prosecution.

He used high-resolution images generated by earth observation satellite QuickBird owned by Digital Globe to analyse the events in Eldoret, Kiamumbi, Langas, Huruma and Kimumu. He examined images captured between January 1 and 4, 2008 when the chaos had intensified in the North Rift.

The witness produced reports that were admitted as evidence without objection by the defence lawyers. To establish what was happening, Bromley said he used pictures recorded before and those recorded after the period and compared them. The images showed some structures in the first pictures, which had disappeared in the second pictures, leading him to conclude that they had been destroyed.

He had marked the destroyed structures with red dots. They spread across vast areas of the images, which he presented in court.

The witness told the judges that the images showed grey and black material on the ground, which was an indication of ashes.