Gicheru refutes claims that he scuttled Ruto’s case
The Kenyan Eldoret based lawyer Paul Gicheru has denied claims by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor of being accountable of bribery plot to scurry Deputy President William Ruto’s case.
Through his lawyer, Michael Karnavas, Gicheru says the prosecution headed by Fatou Bensouda is relying on unbelievable and discredited witnesses who were out to extort money and other benefits from The Hague-based court.
The prosecution alleges intermediaries of executing the plan included former Turbo MP Elisha Busienei and Silas Kibet Simatwo, who chairs the board of Amaco Insurance Company.
According to Fatou Bensouda, other actors in the common plan included Isaac Maiyo, who was the former chairman of the Constituencies Development Fund (CDF) of Eldoret North Constituency, J.N. Njuguna, Arap Mitei and Gregory Mutai. Another identified by the name Kogo, was alleged to have been Gicheru’s bodyguard.
Bensouda has claimed that the witnesses can be heard in conversations with persons associated with Gicheru, “who was trying to locate ICC witnesses.”
She adds that in one of the conversations, Gicheru’s alleged contact says that “payments from Ruto were being channelled through” the lawyer.
“The Defence has not submitted any evidence of their own that could explain why these intermediaries who offered bribes to the Prosecution Witnesses would have falsely claimed – in contemporaneous statements made in the course of the commission of the crimes charged –that they acted on behalf of Gicheru,” Bensouda told the court.
According to Bensouda, Gicheru and his associates were careful not to leave any financial trail of the bribes paid to the Prosecution Witnesses.
Gicheru is asking the judges not to confirm the charges against him as there is no evidence that he was a member of any common plan to identify, locate, and corruptly influence prosecution witnesses.
“The OTP offers no explanation as to why an amicus prosecutor was not appointed as requested by Prosecutor-elect Mr. Karim Khan Q.C. when acting as Ruto’s lawyer, based on his knowledge and good faith belief as an officer of the court that,“ he said.
Karnavas argued that the ICC staff members may have: engaged in sexual relations with the witnesses and their families, been bribed by witnesses and were party to the submission of false financial claims.
Another allegation was that there were breaches of Victims and Witnesses Unit (VWU) protocol by witnesses, and obtaining pecuniary benefit from the false financial claims.
Karnavas argues that there is no evidence Mr Gicheru was a member of a network that the prosecution describes as common plan whose scheme was to corruptly influence witnesses that had been lined up against Dr Ruto.
Gicheru is among the three Kenyans whom the international court had been looking for interfering with its witnesses in the cases against humanity.
Bensouda told the court that she has a number of conversations between intermediaries acting for Gicheru and his associates that were recorded by the Prosecution Witnesses they were targeting.
She argues that Gicheru is criminally responsible, as a direct perpetrator, co-perpetrator or accessory, for a concerted campaign of witness interference in the case of The Prosecutor vs William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang.
“In these recordings, the Intermediaries themselves explain important details of the Common Plan to the targeted witnesses in their own words,” Bensouda told the court in her latest filing.
In his latest filing before the court, Gicheru terms the Document Containing Charges filed by Bensouda as an “alluring house of cards.”
“Flawed, flimsy, and fallacious, all assertions and arguments collapse when the evidence is diligently scrutinized and weighed in context against the deficiencies of the OTP’s witness statements and testimony – individually and collectively,” Gicheru’s submits.
Gicheru has dismissed the claims by the prosecution saying that Bensouda has not presented any evidence linking him to any of the alleged crimes.
