Court maintains that Kenya as a State party to the Rome Statute has an obligation to enforce arrest warrant

Deputy President William Ruto, his daughter June, Kenyan Ambassador to the Netherlands Makena Muchiri (left) and MPs outside the ICC. [PHOTO: PIUS CHERUIYOT/STANDARD]

By FELIX OLICK

at The Hague

The International Criminal Court has insisted that the government has to arrest journalist Walter Barasa and hand him over to The Hague as instructed.

This comes just a day after Attorney General Githu Muigai pointed to a long-drawn procedure to enforce the arrest warrant.

In what is likely to be a major showdown with the Kenyan authorities, the court maintained that Kenya, as a State party to the Rome Statute, has an obligation to co-operate with the ICC, including the enforcement of the arrest warrant.

“The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Walter Barasa, and notified to the Kenyan authorities the arrest warrant and the request for his arrest and surrender to the ICC,” said ICC Spokeman Fadi El-Abdalla.

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“Kenya, as a State party to the Rome Statute, has the obligation to co-operate with the ICC, including the implementation of the arrest warrant and his surrender to the ICC,” he told The Standard in an interview.

This came even as Barasa’s lawyer, Nick Kaufman, an Israeli, came to Kenya to meet his client over the looming arrest.

wait-and-see strategy

 In an exclusive interview with The Standard, the lawyer, who practises in Jerusalem, sided with the AG, saying his remarks were “absolutely correct.”

 He said they would adopt a wait-and-see strategy to appraise themselves of what the Kenya Government intend to do.

“What the Attorney General has said is absolutely correct,” he told The Standard via e-mail.

He added: “I will be taking instructions from Mr Barasa in the coming days. We will first of all appraise ourselves of how the Kenyan authorities intend to act with respect to the demand made of them by the International Criminal Court. I should add that no submissions have yet been made in court on behalf of Mr Barasa. We still await the Kenyan authorities’ decision with respect to how they propose to deal with the demand from The Hague.”