Depressing news
The news, which must be depressing to the President who last evening was facing mounting pressure to release Uhuru and Muthaura, who are still serving in Government despite his previous acknowledgement that those whose charges would be confirmed would have to step aside.
Indeed the Orange Democratic Movement, whose members William Ruto and Henry Kosgey left the Cabinet after they were beset by court cases, tabled an agreement between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on the removal from Government of those whose charges ICC would confirm.
ODM was incensed when Attorney General Githu Muigai, who they accused of playing politics and applying double standards, announced he would not advise the President to force the two out of Government until the appeal against the confirmation of charges on Monday was exhausted.
However, the Presidentâs word in favour of Muthaura and Uhuru at ICC seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. The court also dismissed the statement by National Intelligence Service Director Maj-Gen Michael Gichangi that if such a meeting had taken place, the NSIS or him would have known.
The judges argued even when Uhuruâs witness, Kabete MP Lewis Nguyai confirmed his links with Mungiki, the intelligence service never made mention of it.
There was another complication, showing the judges chose to take not only the Presidentâs word with a pinch of salt, but that of his officers as well. A list of names of people who went to State House on the day of the meeting included Maina Kangethe Diambo, said to be a high-profile Mungiki adherent.
Worse still for the Presidentâs men, the list given by his former State Comptroller Hyslop Ipu also came with the officerâs own admission that not all the people who entered State House that day were listed.
Mungiki members
This opened the door for conclusion by the judges that it must be true that the so-called âyouthsâ who were introduced to the President by Muthaura in the presence of Uhuru on November 26, 2007, were in fact Mungiki members.
The seriousness of the claims as considered by the judges lay in the fact that three witnesses confirmed the meetings took place. One of them, who attended both meetings at State House and the Nairobi Club where the reprisal attacks in Naivasha and Nakuru were allegedly plotted, has his name blacked out in all references to him in fuller version of the ruling.
The Presidentâs evidence were also discounted alongside the statement considered speculative and unreliable given by Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua, and Michael Kagika, a State House administrator whom the judges considered too junior to be relied upon on a matter involving the President and his guests. They also noted he only turned up at State House at noon.
