Wednesday 6 April 2016

Kenya: ICC Terminates Case Against DP William Ruto over Post Election crisis


Deputy President William Ruto and former radio presenter Joshua Arap Sang have been set free by the International Criminal Court.
Judges decided by a majority that the case against DP Ruto and Mr Sang be terminated, adding that the decision does not preclude future prosecution at the ICC or in a national jurisdiction.
"The charges are hereby vacated and the accused are discharged from the process without prejudice to their presumption of innocence or the prosecutor's right to re-prosecute the case at a later time," Presiding Judge Eboe-Osuji said.
Judges Eboe-Osuji and Robert Fremr, as a majority, agreed that the charges should be vacated and the accused be discharged, but they provided different reasons for their decision.
Judge Fremr found that the accused had no case based on an assessment of the prosecution's evidence in accordance with the chamber's guidelines.
He argued that the prosecution did not present sufficient evidence on which a reasonable trial chamber could convict the accused.
Accordingly, he concluded that there was no reason to call the defence to bring their case or to prolong the proceedings any further.
Judge Eboe-Osuji concurred with Judge Fremr's assessment but declared a mistrial in the case, arguing that that it could not be discounted that the weakness in the prosecution's case might be explained by the demonstrated incidence of tainting of the trial process by way of witness interference and political meddling that was reasonably likely to intimidate witnesses.
Judge Hererra Carbuccia appended a dissenting opinion. In her view, the charges against both accused should not be vacated in the present case.
According to her, the prosecution's case had not broken down and she concluded that there is sufficient evidence upon which, if accepted, a reasonable trial chamber could convict the accused.
The ICC trial chamber ruled that the PEV victims should be invited to express views and concerns in relation to reparation or assistance in lieu of reparation.
The two have been freed from charges of crimes against humanity arising from the 2007/2008 post-election violence that left some 1,113 people dead and more than 500,000 internally displaced.
Mr Ruto and Mr Sang's legal teams filed the no-case-to-answer application last September, saying that ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had not built a case to have then put on their defence.
The application was heard in January, but the judges blocked the defence teams from presenting witnesses to support their arguments.

However, lawyer Karim Khan, for Mr Ruto, and Mr Katwa Kigen, for Mr Sang, argued that the case had collapsed after the prosecution failed to present adequate evidence.

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