ICC and Nairobi continue to trade blows

The International Criminal Court’s testy relationship with Africa remains firmly in the global spotlight as it continues to trade blows with the Kenyan Government over the recent collapse of the case against Deputy President William Ruto. At the same time, notes Legalbrief, The Hague-based court is monitoring developments in the Ivory Coast where former First Lady Simone Gbagbo is set to go on trial on charges of crimes against humanity after the Supreme Court rejected the latest appeal by her lawyers. The long-running dispute between Kenya and the ICC intensified last week when Nairobi said it would not hand over three people wanted by The Hague and demanded the chief prosecutor’s powers be diluted. The Financial Times reports that Attorney-General Githu Muigai said the government wanted the ICC to transfer to Kenyan authorities the files of the three men accused of interfering with witnesses in several cases, including those involving President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto, so they could be prosecuted domestically. They were both charged in relation to the 2007 post-election violence, but neither was tried, partly because judges and prosecutors alleged interference with witnesses. Muigai insisted that Kenya’s legal system, which has undergone reform in the past few years, was competent to try Walter Barasa, Paul Gicheru and Philip Kipkoech, the three men suspected of witness tampering. However, he admitted that the international crimes division of the Kenyan High Court had yet to be established. Kenyatta last week declared that no Kenyan will ever be tried at The Hague again. ‘I will not allow any other Kenyan to be tried in a foreign court. As a country, we have closed the ICC chapter,’ Uhuru told a thanksgiving rally in Afraha stadium, Nakuru. However, the ICC has told the The Star that the government risks being sanctioned for refusing to co-operate. ‘In case of non-co-operation, the legal procedure before the ICC is for the judges to make a finding of non-compliance and to refer it to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute for the assembly to take any measure it deems appropriate,’ ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah is quoted in the report as saying.

Full Financial Times report

Full report in The Star