By Standard Team
It is now official – 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 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 President’s 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 President’s 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.
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 President’s 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 Uhuru’s 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 President’s 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 President’s men, the list given by his former State Comptroller Hyslop Ipu also came with the officer’s 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 ‘youths’ 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 President’s 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.
"In particular, the Chamber is satisfied that there are substantial grounds to believe that on November 26, 2007, a meeting was held at Nairobi State House between Muthaura, Kenyatta, Mungiki representatives, President Mwai Kibaki, and others,’’ read Paragraph 310 of the ruling.
In another paragraph the judges argued that both Kibaki and Ipu, "confirmed their participation on that day in the meeting with the representatives of the youth, but denied the presence of the Mungiki therein." They listed the head of Presidential Press Service Isaiya Kabira and the then Presidential advisor Stanley Murage as also having attended the meeting.
Speaking on the fate of Uhuru and Muthaura, Muigai said: "As far as we are concerned at this point in time, this issue is premature. Our understanding is that the confirmations have been made and they are going to appeal. So in our understanding we cannot make any precipitate decision."
He appointed a ten member-team made up of local and international legal experts to advise the Government on the options available in the ICC case.
Those in the legal team are Mr Geoffrey Nice, a Queen’s Counsel of London, Mr Rodney Dixon a Barrister of London, and Senior Counsel Fred Ojiambo, Joe Okwach, and Waweru Gatonye, and International law experts Godfrey Musila, Betty Murungi, Lucy Kambuni, Grace Wakio and Henry Mutai.
