{{Reports from Kenya reveal that International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has suffered another setback in her case against President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta. }} <\/p>\n
Just three months to the start of Uhuru\u2019s trial on July 11 at The Hague, it is emerging that three prosecution witnesses have refused to testify against him.<\/p>\n
Witnesses Number 2, 9, and 10 were among the 12 Bensouda relied on to have the charges against Uhuru confirmed by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II in January last year.<\/p>\n
Recently, the prosecutor dropped another, Witness Number 4, in the case against Uhuru citing credibility issues after he recanted his testimony. <\/p>\n
This also prompted Bensouda to withdraw the charges against Uhuru\u2019s former co-accused, Francis Muthaura, a former Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet. <\/p>\n
Uhuru\u2019s lawyers and the prosecution have battled over the implication of the shelving of Witness Number Four\u2019s testimony, with Uhuru insisting charges against him ought to be withdrawn too.<\/p>\n
Trial Chamber V judges are yet to rule on the application by Uhuru\u2019s legal team.<\/p>\n
In the latest submission to the court, in response to earlier submissions by Uhuru\u2019s lawyers, Bensouda discloses that Witnesses two, nine and 10 have changed their minds after having earlier expressed willingness to, citing security threats and fears of retaliation against their families.<\/p>\n
Rethinking decision<\/p>\n
In a detailed submission to the three judges of Trial Chamber V, Bensouda explained the circumstances in which each of the witnesses had balked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the Prosecution contacted Witness Two on November 3, 2012, to confirm his availability to testify, he said he was rethinking his decision,\u201d the prosecution says in the court filing dated March 28.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThe Prosecution made several attempts to persuade Witness Two to testify, either as a Prosecution or as a Court witness, but on November 20, 2012, he informed the Prosecution that his decision not to testify was final.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Prosecutor also said that Witness Nine informed her office on August 17, last year, that he was unsure whether he could continue to co-operate with her office.<\/p>\n
The witness, Bensouda added, developed cold feet due to what she termed as \u201cconcerns about retaliation against his family from the accused persons\u201d.<\/p>\n
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{{Reports from Kenya reveal that International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has suffered another setback in her case against President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta. }} Just three months to the start of Uhuru\u2019s trial on July 11 at The Hague, it is emerging that three prosecution witnesses have refused to testify against him. Witnesses Number 2, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}