{{After the collapse of half a dozen cases over atrocities, International Criminal Court prosecutors are seeking to hire forensic experts to reduce their reliance on witness testimony.}}
Although not the only factor in the court’s failure to secure more than one conviction in a decade, the disappearance of witnesses, doubts over their accounts and withdrawals of their statements have undermined prosecutions over suspected crimes against humanity in Kenya, Sudan, Congo and elsewhere.
That has stymied a court designed to dispense international justice and discourage war crimes. This week, the ICC began hearing testimony in a trial over Kenya’s 2008 bloodshed.
Court officials said they had asked donors for a 10 percent increase in next year’s budget from the 115 million euros ($155 million) in 2013. Much of the additional money would pay for expert investigators.
Some past cases relied too much on witness testimony and had gone to trial with too little evidence, said Phakiso Mochochoko, a senior official in the court’s Office of the Prosecutor.
“We are looking at possibilities for cyber investigations and other forensic evidence we could collect,” said Mochochoko.
The planned overhaul in investigations follows the replacement of high-profile chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo by Gambian lawyer Fatou Bensouda last year.
When it comes to relying on witnesses, the Kenyan cases show how things can go wrong.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, face separate charges of orchestrating post-election clashes in 2008 which left about 1,200 people dead.
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