ICC-KENYA APPEAL/FILE Key decision due on Kenya's post-election violence case at the ICC

Record ID: 143503

  • Title: ICC-KENYA APPEAL/FILE Key decision due on Kenya's post-election violence case at the ICC
  • Date: 18th August 2015
  • Summary: MAN WITH HEAD INJURY GETTING INTO BUS/BUS DRIVING AWAY
  • Embargoed: 2nd September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4B6F1U2G3DI3EJO6FZ1VD3A30
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    The International Criminal Court (ICC) will deliver a key judgment in the case against the serving Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday (August 19).
    The appeals chamber of the global war crimes court in the Hague, the Netherlands, is set to rule on the prosecutor's appeal regarding the Kenyan government's cooperation with the court.
    The Kenyan Electoral Commission declared Mwai Kibaki the winner of the December 2007 presidential election. Kibaki was sworn in hours later, although the result was rejected by the opposition party ODM on the grounds of vote rigging.
    Violent conflict broke out between different ethnic groups as angry protesters took to the streets. Rioters looted and set fire to businesses in the Kenyan capital Nairobi for days and informal settlements turned into battlegrounds as people with opposing political and tribal loyalties fought each other.
    Police and armed forces responded with batons and tear gas, firing shots in the air to disperse protesters.
    Violence spread throughout Kenya as protesters turned against people suspected of supporting the government.
    Refugees from the violence who took shelter in a church in the western city of Eldoret were locked inside while attackers torched the building.
    Current president Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were alleged by the ICC to have been indirect co-perpetrators in the post-election violence.
    Judges at the ICC agreed to withdraw the charges against the Kenyan President, ending the global war crimes court's highest-profile case before it reached trial, but leaving room for it to be revived.
    Prosecutors blamed their failure to put Kenyatta on trial on political interference and massive interference with witnesses, especially after Kenyatta was elected president in 2013.
    But Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's founding father, rejected the charges, saying they were trumped up and politically motivated, and that the claims of intimidation or bribery of witnesses were a cover for prosecutors' incompetence.
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