Deputy President William Ruto, Joshua Sang deny ICC poll violence charges

By Felix Olick at The Hague

Netherlands: Deputy President William Ruto pleaded not guilty to crimes against humanity charges as the prosecution laid out the case against him at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Ruto’s co-accused, journalist Joshua Sang, also denied the charges before the three-judge Bench during the opening of their trial at The Hague-based court.

In her opening statement, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda claimed Ruto, the first sitting senior government official to be tried at the court, planned attacks prior to the 2007 disputed presidential election.

Bensouda vowed “to prove beyond any reasonable doubt” that Ruto and Sang were responsible for the bloodletting in 2008 after President Kibaki’s re-election was disputed by his main challenger, Mr Raila Odinga.

“Your honours, the evidence which the prosecution will present will prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the crimes for which Mr Ruto and Mr Sang are charged were not just random and spontaneous acts of brutality,” she told Trial Chamber V(a) Judges.

However, the first witness in the case against Ruto and Sang, will not take the stand until Tuesday next week. The witness who was not disclosed, would have began giving his evidence today but the prosecution told the court that he was still on the way to The Hague. Ruto will fly back home Wednesday and return to The Hague on Monday.

Bensouda prosecuted her case against Ruto and Sang, stating that the pair is among the “most responsible for the crimes of murder, persecution and deportation that occurred in the Rift Valley.“

Dragged Raila in

But Ruto’s lead counsel, Karim Khan, dismissed the prosecution’s investigations as shoddy and deficient and which they would “blow away like cobwebs.”

“The investigations have been exceptionally deficient. At the end of this case, there should be an inquiry on how these investigations were conducted,” he said.

Khan added: “We say that there is a rotten underbelly of this case, that the prosecutor has swallowed hook, line and sinker, indifferent to the truth, all too eager to latch onto any story that somehow ticks the boxes that we have to tick (to support charges).”

Ruto’s defence dragged Raila into the proceedings, playing a TV clip in which the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader is quoted saying, “we are going to call for mass action countrywide, peaceful demonstration.” But Bensouda maintained that Ruto, as the “anointed” leader of the Kalenjin community, enlisted political collaborators, former military men, elders and the media to put together a “network” to commit the crimes.

The Kalenjin, who are the majority in the Rift Valley, had perceived the Kikuyu minority as “unwelcome settlers who had misappropriated their ancestral land,” she said.

Bensouda claimed that Ruto and his syndicate of powerful allies, including Sang, sought to exploit these historical tensions between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu for their own political and personal ends.

“This was a carefully planned, co-ordinated and executed campaign of violence, specifically targeting perceived PNU supporters, their homes and their businesses,” she said.

Ruto remained calm as Bensouda recounted the chilling events of the 2007 post-poll mayhem, including the burning alive of mostly Kikuyu women and children huddled together in a church in Kiambaa on January 1, 2008. At one time, he smiled when a court officer alleged “there was a plot to rid the Rift Valley of PNU supporters with the ultimate goal of creating a uniform ODM voting block”.

He would occasionally take a glance at his wife, Rachel, who was seated with Jubilee-allied MPs and the Kenyan Ambassador to The Netherlands, Mrs Makena Muchiri, at the court’s public gallery.

“Over a period of 18 months prior to the elections, in a series of private and public meetings, Mr Ruto assembled this network, using to his advantage existing Kalenjin community structures and customs,” Bensouda claimed.

Anti-Kikuyu rhetoric

She said that Ruto assigned responsibilities, raised finance, procured weapons and hosted meetings in furtherance of the criminal aims of the network and used Sang, who was then a popular radio presenter at Kass FM, as the main mouthpiece.

But Bensouda also claimed that Sang placed his prime-time radio show at the disposal of the network to spread their message and co-ordinate their activities.

“Mr Sang broadcast anti-Kikuyu rhetoric, spread the word of Mr Ruto’s rallies, and even helped to co-ordinate the actual attacks through coded messages,” she said.

The prosecution gave a graphic description of the atrocities committed against perceived PNU supporters in Nandi and Uasin Gishu.

Over 200 people were killed, 1,000 injured and over 50,000 homes razed to the ground in Uasin Gishu alone — the highest number in any single  district in Kenya — and tens of thousands of people fled the  area, she added.

Estimates of the number of internally displaced Kenyans from the Rift Valley range from 200,000 to 400,000, she added.  “It is difficult to imagine the suffering, or the terror, of the men, women and children who were burned alive, hacked to death, or chased from their homes by armed youths,” said Bensouda. 

But Khan laughed off the evidence of the prosecution and lashed at former ICC Prosecutor Louis Moreno Ocampo for failing to carry out independent investigations.

 “A scheme targeting Mr William Samoei Ruto was completed even before the ICC authorised investigations in Kenya,” he alleged.

Using video evidence showing Ruto’s support for ICC intervention in Kenya, Khan maintained that Ruto has set the standard for respect for the law. He said that the closure of three IDP camps by Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta over the weekend shows their commitment to assisting the victims of the bloodshed.

Khan added: “She (Bensouda) was asked three times (during a press conference) whether or not she had a strong case and she declined to answer that yes, she was confident she had the right man, the case had proper foundation and she would prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.”

The legal representative of the victims, Wilfred Nderitu, asked the judges to ensure that justice was served for the victims, to counter their “neglect by the Kenyan Government”. Nderitu said that there have been no local mechanisms to try mid- and lower-level perpetrators of the violence, and the plight of the victims had fallen on deaf ears.