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ICC dismisses case against Kenya’s deputy president ICC dismisses case against Kenya’s deputy president
(about 1 hour later)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court has terminated the case against Kenya’s deputy president and ended his trial, saying there is insufficient evidence he was involved in deadly violence that erupted after his country’s 2007 presidential elections. THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court terminated the case against Kenya’s deputy president and ended his trial Tuesday, saying there was insufficient evidence he was involved in deadly violence that erupted after his country’s 2007 presidential elections.
Tuesday’s announcement marks the second time the court has had to admit defeat in its attempts to prosecute alleged ringleaders of the violence that left more than 1,000 people dead and forced 600,000 from their homes in Kenya. The presiding judge said in the written decision that the reason for the lack of evidence was possibly “witness interference and political meddling.”
Deputy President William Ruto had been charged alongside broadcaster Joshua Sang with murder, deportation and persecution for their alleged leading roles in the violence. The announcement marks the second time the court has had to admit defeat in its attempts to prosecute alleged ringleaders of the violence that left more than 1,000 people dead and forced 600,000 from their homes in Kenya.
Deputy President William Ruto had been charged alongside broadcaster Joshua Sang with murder, deportation and persecution for their alleged leading roles in the violence. The case against Sang was also closed Tuesday.
Local TV in Kenya showed both men waving their arms in the air in celebration and being hugged by Ruto’s staff. TV images also showed hundreds of people celebrating in Ruto’s home town of Eldoret.
A case against President Uhuru Kenyatta on similar charges collapsed in December 2014 amid prosecution claims of interference with witnesses and non-cooperation by authorities in Nairobi.
At the time, Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda blamed Kenya for blocking her investigations and called it “a dark day for international criminal justice.”
Three Kenyans have been charged with interfering with witnesses.
In a statement Tuesday, Kenyatta criticized the court for what he branded a decision to “blindly pursue (an) ill-conceived, defective agenda at the expense of accountability” for the violence and said the court had “given Kenyans false hope, and as a result, occasioned much disappointment.”
Elizabeth Evenson, senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch, said that Kenya’s failure to prosecute perpetrators “leaves victims bereft of justice and the help they need.” She said the Ruto trial “will likely be remembered for the reported efforts to corrupt witnesses.”
In Tuesday’s decision, two members of the three-judge panel ordered the charges against Ruto and Sang to be dropped, although they said charges could be brought again if there is sufficient evidence.
According to a court statement, Presiding Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji said that “it cannot be discounted that the weaknesses in the Prosecution case might be explained by the demonstrated incidence of tainting of the trial process by way of witness interference and political meddling that was reasonably likely to intimidate witnesses.”
Appeals judges ruled in February that statements made by five witnesses who later changed their stories or refused to testify against Ruto and Sang, could not be used as evidence, a decision that likely sped up the case’s collapse.
ICC prosecutors originally charged six Kenyans with crimes linked to the post-election violence. Charges have now been dropped against all six.
Zephania Mwangi, whose grandfather was hacked to death by an angry mob in a Kenyan slum that saw outbreaks of violence after the 2007 vote, said the court should consider the victims.
“If someone lost property or someone, they should be compensated at least so that they can get their life back to normal,” he said before the decision was published.
The claims of widespread witness interference underscore a major problem facing the court, which was set up to prosecute suspects considered most responsible for atrocities. That means sometimes going after senior politicians and having to rely on their police and security forces for cooperation.
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Khaled Kazziha in Nairobi contributed.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.