Gicheru’s ICC trial; Witness testifies how she was demanded to withdraw from Ruto’s case
The third witness in the trial of lawyer Paul Gicheru at the International Criminal Court in The Hague has narrated how she was approached to withdraw from the case against Deputy President William Ruto.
The witness, P-0613 testified that after she was identified as a witness to testify against Ruto and journalist Joshua Sang and relocated to a secret place, she was contacted by an unknown person who sought a meeting to discuss the matter.
She narrated to Trial Chamber III Judge Miatta Maria Samba how members and agents of the witness bribery scheme followed her to a hotel in an unnamed foreign country with promises of money.
“I was relocated to another place after agreeing to become a witness in the Ruto and Sang case but while at the secret location, it came to my attention that some people were looking for me. They then called me on the phone,” said the witness.
According to the witness, shortly after she recorded her statement with ICC investigators in December 2012, she was relocated to a place identified as location 12 where the individual identified as Person Number 53 contacted her.
She had been kept at the hotel by the ICC prosecution investigations prior to April 2013.
One of the said agents travelled to the foreign country, but the planned meeting did not take place, however, other meetings happened later.
Being led in her evidence-in-chief by ICC senior prosecutor Anton Steynberg, the witness said that she immediately contacted ICC investigators about the attempts to influence her and arranged a meeting where she recorded a statement.
She said the investigators gave her a phone and a device to record their conversations if the person called again, and that she willingly agreed to cooperate with the investigators for the sake of post-election violence victims.
“I was not pressured by anyone to record a statement over the scheme to influence me. I agreed on my own volition because I wanted justice for the victims,” she said.
The witness told the court that Person Number 53 continued to contact her and she recorded all their conversations, which she handed over to ICC investigators.
She said she had confirmed her original recordings and transcripts which were played to her by the prosecutors when she was being briefed about the case against Gicheru, and that she could identify the people who called her.
She told the court that as the individual continued to press on her, they arranged a meeting after the person told her she had information from another person identified as Person Number 63, which he wanted to pass to her.
“He told me he had information from Person 63 which he wanted to pass to me. Since he could not come to Location 12 where I was relocated, we agreed to meet at another place so that we have lunch,” she said.
She said they agreed to have the meeting on April 29, 2013. The person told her to wait for him at the venue on the material day but he did not show up.
After the aborted meeting, she said she met again with ICC prosecutors on the same day at a place identified as Location 11 where she briefed them on what transpired.
The witness told the court that she gave the investigators a series of recorded phone calls and details of other meetings with persons identified as Persons 62 and 14, and another politician only identified as Arap Lagat.
She added that she was aware of some witnesses who had withdrawn their statements and were compelled by the ICC judges to testify against Ruto and Sang.
Among the people who approached her to offer her financial incentives to withdraw as a witness were her fellow witnesses in Ruto’s case such as P-0516, P-0494 and Meshack Yebei who was killed in December 2014.
The hearing was adjourned to today where Gicheru’s defence lawyers will cross-examine the witness.
