Crucial point for President Uhuru Kenyatta’s ICC case as prosecution to reveal decision

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

NAIROBI, KENYA: President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) could take a critical turn during a status conference at The Hague in the Netherlands tomorrow.

The ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is expected to reveal if she is ready to proceed with the trial after receiving records of Uhuru’s bank accounts and properties from the Government last week.

At a status conference in February, the prosecution said that other than the financial statements and records of the assets, they no longer had credible evidence against President Kenyatta.

“The OTP has received a quantity of material from GoK,” Bensouda told the court, saying it was released after meeting the Government in May and that they were studying them ahead of the status conference.

The only evidence they hoped to rely on was the President’s financial record during the 2007/2008 post-election violence.

The prosecution claimes Uhuru financed Mungiki operations in the Rift Valley in the wake of the skirmishes.

He is accused of having spent millions to enable the outlawed sect carry out revenge attacks in Nakuru and Naivasha.

Consequently, the prosecution asked Trial Chamber V(b) to compel the Government to disclose the withheld statements, which would be key to revealing Uhuru’s financial record for the period in question, before deciding whether or not to terminate the case.

Prosecutor Benjamin Gumbert told Trial Chamber V(b) at the time that only after accessing the records would they know if they had sufficient evidence to proceed with the trial, having earlier acknowledged efforts at new evidence had yielded nothing.

“We have exhausted all reasonable prospects, but we are under a duty to continue with investigations. We have to take a realistic view as prosecutors on which stones could be turned. As stones get less and less promising we have made a decision that the remaining stones are characterised as pebbles and the realistic prospects that turning them will yield evidence is minimal,” Gumbert told the judges.

And failing to trace any tangible evidence in the withheld statements, the prosecution said, they would withdraw the charges against the President.

The Chamber will tomorrow be waiting to hear if, after reviewing the financial records, the prosecution still wants to proceed with the case.

Uhuru’s case is scheduled to start on October 7, but the prosecution, the defence and the court have already been discussing legal procedures for terminating it.