ICC assigns three judges to collapsed Uhuru, Ruto cases

Barely a week after the International Criminal Court (ICC) Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji (Nigeria) was elected to head The Hague-based court, new judges have been assigned to try Kenyan cases.

The ICC presidency has picked Judges Robert Fremr, Reine Alapini-Gansou and Kimberly Prost to try the collapsed cases of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

In a news statement dated March 16 posted to their website, it says it has reconstituted the various chambers and reassigned cases.

“The assignments as well as the re-composition of Chambers will be effective as of 20 March 2018,” it says.

The situations in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Burundi and Ivory Coast will be handled by Judges Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua, Tomoko Akane and Rosario Salvatore Aitala at the Pre-Trial chamber II.

If they cases will advance, they will be handled by three judges at Trial Chamber IV.

The three judges at Trial Chamber IV have been assigned three cases: one against President Uhuru, his deputy Ruto and former journalist Joshua Sang and the third against Sudan’s Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain, who is accused of war crimes against peacekeepers.

The Kenyan trio were facing charges of crimes against humanity in the aftermath of 2007/08 post-election violence.

On December 5, 2014 the case against Uhuru was withdrawn with the judge citing insufficient evidence.

That of Ruto and Sang was dismissed on April5, 2016 in what the ruling judge termed "troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling".

Ruto and Sang denied murder, deportation and persecution charges during violence that saw 1,200 people killed.

The collapsed case remained closed unless and until the prosecution submitted new evidence.