By Standard Team
It is now official â The Hague judges are convinced President Kibaki had a meeting with Mungiki members at State House alongside the two members of his Government committed to full trial.
Furthermore, it is on the basis of this fact sold to the judges by Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that the Pre-Trial Chamber II declined to believe the personal statement the President gave the court in defence of Head of Civil Service and Secretarty to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura.
President Kibaki. ICC judges ignored his statement on Uhuru, Muthaura as they believe he too was in State House meeting with Mungiki [Photo: File/Standard]
The Presidentâs statement, footnoted as No.585, was given to ICC to discount the claims by the Prosecutorâs witnesses that two meetings were held at State House between Muthaura and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, whose charges were also confirmed with Mungiki.
The President denied the two meetings, the second said to have been on December 30, 2007, took place at State House when the Prosecutor made the claims during the confirmation of charges hearings, last year.
The judges used the two meetings to anchor the charges against Uhuru and Muthaura. Another meeting was said to have taken place at Nairobi Club, where the statement by its head David Waters was also dismissed as it merely showed on that night there were only 16 guests in the club, but does not give their particulars.
Cast aspersions
However, the references to the meetings, which may cast aspersions on the Presidentâs impartiality when it comes to making hard decisions on Uhuru and Muthaura, were also made by the report on post-election violence compiled by a judicial commission presided over by Justice Phillip Waki.
It also sets the stage for the possibility that if the appeals to be filed by the two are thrown out, the Presidentâs State House may feature during the subsequent trials expected to go on even when he will be in retirement after the General Election.
Another complication that may arise from this link to the President may accrue from the fact that the State is preparing to start local trials for minor offenders in post-election violence, estimated at 5,000, with the Attorney General already asking the Chief Justice to set up a special court for international crimes committed in Kenya.
The determination of who will be charged in this lower-level cases may be a subject of confrontation between the two coalition partners, a fact which could bring into play the accusation that President Kibaki sat in one of the meetings with Mungiki accused of killings in Rift Valley. The alleged plot was aimed at keeping him in power and avenging murder of members of his community in the Rift Valley.
