Court told how Gicheru tampered with witnesses

The International Criminal Court was yesterday told how lawyer Mr Paul Gicheru was singled out for arrest. The lead investigator said his team combed through witnesses’ mobile phones and established crime patterns.

Trial Chamber III judge Maria Samba heard that although there were many suspects, ICC investigators gathered evidence implicating only a few.

P-0730 said the suspects included Mr Gicheru, Mr Silas Simatwo, an executive in an insurance firm associated with Deputy President William Ruto, P-0654, P-0579, persons number 28, 33 and 25.

ICC deputy prosecutor Mr James Stewart was told following the overwhelming evidence, the investigation team singled out Mr Gicheru, journalist Walter Barasa, Mr Philip Kipkoech and the late Mr Meshack Yebei as the main suspects.

Mr Yebei was touted as a star witness against Dr Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang. Mr Yebei was abducted on December 28, 2014, and found dead several months later. No arrests have been made since then. In 2015, the ICC denied Mr Yebei was on the prosecution’s witness list but regretted that he had been killed.

Prosecutor Stewart said: “Why were these four (Gicheru, Barasa, Kipkoech and Yebei) selected for a warrant of arrest?”

The witness said: “Assessment of the evidence indicated that it was strong enough for a warrant of arrest.”  

 He also detailed the frustration they had to go through investigating crimes committed during the 2007-08 post-election violence.

The witness narrated that the Kenya government declined to cooperate, while some witnesses had doubtful testimonies after being bribed. The investigators were also denied access to the crime scenes.

Witness P-0730 told the court the government was non-committal about giving investigators a leeway to question suspects who were interfering with witnesses as the cases involved  President Uhuru Kenyatta, Dr Ruto and other senior government officials.

The witness said it would have been dangerous to ask the authorities to help as that would expose witnesses. “For me to conduct certain inquiries, I need to involve the Kenyan authorities. A simple example would be if I wanted to access the telephone data of a witness or a suspect. To do that, I would send a request for assistance to the Kenyan authorities.”

P-0730 continued: “In this case, because they’re not cooperating my concern is that I will not have a response.

“Additionally by making that request I will put somebody at risk because I will be identifying a witness or a suspect whose risk I also have to assess.” According to the witness, investigators would have gotten information on what was happening in the country by intercepting phone calls. 

However, this did not happen out of fear that they too were on the National Intelligence Services radar.

“We did not consider phone interception as there were concerns about the nature of those services. This was a trial of a President and Deputy President,” stated P-0730.

On the witnesses, the investigator said those who were tampering with others had learnt a new tactic of contacting them using phones that could not be traced.

The judge heard that for the investigator to use this method, they had to factor in a technical plan that assesses the proportion, legality, whether the interception is allowed, and its necessity.

Towards the middle of May 2013, P-0730 was asked by the ICC to review allegations of witness interference.

He completed the review and shared how he believed a witness interference investigation could be conducted. He went through at least 350 reports on witness tampering. The reports were classified as witness intimidation or corruption of witnesses.