Twenty Reasons Why Uhuru Kenyatta May Be Detained at The Hague
Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya’s Social Media: Eventually nabbed by Bensouda after “many years” of being at large in Central Province issuing anti-ICC statements and mobilizing supporters to attack ICC.
By accepting to appear at the International Criminal Court, suspect Uhuru Kenyatta has demonstrated that the endless anti-ICC rhetoric (by himself and sycophants alike) since he was indicted by the court has been hot air. After mobilizing African dictators under the auspices of the AU to sign a declaration “barring sitting African heads of State” from attending ICC sessions, AU must have been humbled as Uhuru heads to The Hague to parade himself before the very imperialist powers both Uhuru and AU have been vilifying consistently.
The decision by Uhuru to appear before the ICC must have been informed by two factors. If he failed to appear before the Court, ICC could have issued an arrest warrant for Uhuru, an action that could have exacerbated Uhuru’s situation because it could have prevented him from travelling anywhere.
Another reason that might have motivated Uhuru to obey ICC is because he is hoping that he will not be detained by the Court. So far, there are at least 20 reasons that ICC could exploit to detain Uhuru at the ICC. These are valid reasons and as Uhuru leaves for the Hague, his supporters should keep their fingers crossed because they may have seen the last of President Uhuru Kenyatta in case ICC decides to flex its muscles. What are the 20 reasons why Uhuru can be detained at The Hague? He has:
1. Threatened witnesses not to testify
2. Intimidated Witnesses to withdraw from case
3. Bought out witnesses to pull out of the case
4. Killed witnesses or made them to disappear
5. Denied ICC his personal financial records
6. Denied ICC key evidence in government’s custody
7. Abused ICC and Western Powers using the strongest terms possible
8. Allowed sycophants to abuse ICC at every opportunity
9. Undermined ICC in public speeches
10. Influenced the Kenyan government not to cooperate with ICC
11. Intimidated the Kenyan Media to tell lies about ICC
12. Mobilized AU to take an anti-ICC position which favored him
13. Mobilized Kenyan Parliament to pass a vote removing Kenya from ICC
14. Maintained consistent arrogance against ICC
15. Used Kenyan AG as personal Lawyer at ICC
16. Intimidated witnesses to recant evidence
17. Used government machinery to fight his ICC case
18. Views ICC as a suppressive tool of Western Imperialism
19. Mobilized African dictators against ICC
20. Constantly seeking to portray ICC as incompetent, illegal and unjust
Just as I said here at KSB, the Africa Union cover of Uhuru Kenyatta through a resolution barring him from appearing before the Court was naïve because AU has no influence over ICC. The sycophantic MPs accompanying Uhuru to The Hague are not only wasting time. They are provoking ICC. These MPs seem to believe that the more they mobilize, the more they will influence ICC to leave Uhuru alone. If ICC feels provoked, the MPs may have to return to Kenya without Uhuru Kenyatta. The best the MPs could have done is to avoid unnecessary theatrics of singing the National anthem outside ICC and remain in Kenya to serve their electorates. For now, Kenyans and the world are in for a wait and see.
Okoth Osewe
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
Museveni had never planned to escort Uhuru to Hague
06 October 2014, 10:29
Godfrey Olukya
Kampala – Uganda Government spokesman, Ofwono Opondo, has said President Museveni has never had plans to escort President Uhuru Kenyatta to the Hague court.
During a phone interview, Ofwono Opondo wondered how the head of one country can escort another President to court.
Ofwono said, ”That was a mere rumour. President Museveni has never planned to travel with Uhuru kenyatta to Hague. There is no reason for him to go there.”
Ofwono however said that all the East African community Presidents had resolved that Kenyatta should not go to Hague.
”All the five EAC Presidents came up with one common stand and that is, Uhuru should not go back to Hague,” said Ofwono.
Ugandan Special Presidential Assistant for Communications, Sarah Kagingo also reportedly said President Yoweri Museveni would not travel to The Hague with President Kenyatta though he supports him.
Immediately after the International Criminal Court (ICC) judges ordered for the physical presence of President Kenyatta during the status conference scheduled for Wednesday, news spread on mainstream and social media that African leaders would accompany him to The Hague.
For the latest on national news, politics, sport, entertainment and more follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page!
– MyNews24
Mr Kenyatta faces five charges relating to the ethnic massacres – the worst violence in Kenya since independence in 1963. Tens of thousands of people were displaced and Kenya’s reputation for stability was tarnished.
Mr Kenyatta was a close ally of President Mwai Kibaki, who was declared the winner of the 2007 election. Mr Kibaki’s rival, Raila Odinga, claimed the poll was marred by fraud.
The dispute took on an ethnic dimension, pitting members of the Kikuyu ethnic group of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Kibaki against other communities. Mr Kenyatta is accused of organising an ethnic Kikuyu gang, the Mungiki sect, to attack rival groups.
Vice-President Ruto also faces charges at The Hague, but he was on Mr Odinga’s side during the violence. He also denies the charges.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29511317
Kenya’s Dubious Day in Court
By MICHAEL MEYEROCT. 5, 2014
NAIROBI, Kenya — Will he or won’t he? That is the question Kenyans have been asking in recent weeks. The International Criminal Court has ordered President Uhuru Kenyatta to appear, in person, before the tribunal on Wednesday for alleged crimes against humanity. Will he comply, or will he follow the urging of the African Union and refuse — sending a signal that a court biased against Africa has no right to judge a sitting African head of state?
The president’s legal team has advised him to go to The Hague, if only to avoid an international outcry and a possible Interpol arrest warrant. Either way, it will be a punctuation point in the I.C.C.’s checkered history. President Kenyatta would be the first incumbent leader of a nation to stand before the court. He could also be the last.
These days, even the most strenuous supporters of the court agree with its critics on one point: The International Criminal Court’s handling of the Kenyan case has done more damage to the accusers than the accused. The court’s reputation has suffered, perhaps fatally. By contrast, the Kenyan president and his fellow-indictee, Deputy President William Ruto, are set to emerge from the judicial ordeal as African folk heroes — the face of a new generation of independence fighters to stand against American and European neocolonialists conspiring to bring them down.
Formally, the hearing set for Wednesday doesn’t mark the beginning of anything, let alone a trial. Rather, it is what legal experts call a “status conference,” called by the judges to review the state of the legal proceedings. By any measure, it’s not good. Twice in the last year, the I.C.C. prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has requested an indefinite adjournment on grounds that she lacks the evidence to make her case. Repeatedly, she has accused the Kenyan government of refusing to hand over President Kenyatta’s personal financial records — requested in hopes that they might implicate the president in the ethnic violence that convulsed the country after the bitterly contested elections of December 2007.
More fundamentally, the prosecution has been compromised by witnesses who have either withdrawn from the case or recanted on previous testimony. In Nairobi, rumors swirl that the government has been paying off or intimidating witnesses. True or not, such reports cut both ways. Taking the stand, some witnesses have claimed that they were paid by I.C.C. prosecutors to deliver false testimony. At least one confessed to forging hotel receipts and other expenses covered by the court. Still others have admitted to being seduced to testify by the prospect of living abroad, costs paid, as part of the court’s witness protection program — a credible incentive, to be sure, given that so many Kenyans dream of escaping poverty at home by getting a visa to work in the United States or Europe.
All told, many legal experts agree that the otherwise serious case against Mr. Kenyatta has degenerated into something more resembling a circus, if not an outright farce
Ironically, Kenya was originally among the international court’s most strenuous African supporters, signing the Rome Treaty in hopes that the tribunal could help end the impunity with which so many African dictators oppressed their people. Today, by contrast, the court is increasingly viewed as a dispenser of “white man’s justice.” Capturing this lamentable new zeitgeist, a recent article in the Daily Nation, Kenya’s leading newspaper, compared the Hague trial of Uhuru Kenyatta to the 1952 trial of his father, Jomo Kenyatta. Fearing that the elder Kenyatta would lead Kenya to independence, as he subsequently did, Britain’s colonial authorities trumped up charges implicating him in the infamous Mau Mau rebellion.
Lacking concrete evidence, the government created witnesses by offering them healthy financial incentives, according to the legal scholar Obuya Bagaka of the Kenya School of Government. Not content to leave anything to chance, colonial officials further decided to bribe the judge in the case. For an amount of 20,000 pounds (more than $50,000 at the time), colonial-era documents have shown, the presiding magistrate delivered the desired verdict and sent Jomo Kenyatta and his alleged henchmen to jail.
It’s unsettling that this scandalous episode should color today’s I.C.C. proceedings, for it shows the extent to which the international court’s credibility has been compromised. African leaders have long criticized the tribunal as overtly politicized, with a built-in bias against Africans. Others accuse it of being strong against weak countries, and weak against strong ones.
The Kenya case has only deepened that prejudice. To them, the I.C.C.’s insistence that President Kenyatta attend the status conference in person smacks of a colonial star chamber, with the judges less concerned about administering justice than affirming the court’s own standing in the face of eroding global support.
All this comes against the backdrop of the court’s performance elsewhere. The I.C.C. has been asked to investigate alleged crimes in 139 countries but, so far, has done so in fewer than a dozen, issuing over 30 arrest warrants — all in Africa. As for its effectiveness as an instrument of justice, consider that the court’s first conviction (one of only two so far), concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was referred to the I.C.C. in 2004 and is still under appeal.
It’s not clear how the court will rule in this week’s hearing. The judges could terminate the case, as President Kenyatta’s lawyers will request, or order the prosecutor to carry on despite the lack of evidence.
Clearly and emphatically, the world needs an international criminal court. Just not this one.
Michael Meyer is dean of the graduate school of media and communications at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi. The views expressed here are his own.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/opinion/kenyas-dubious-day-in-court.html?_r=0
It is disgusting that elected political sycophants are accompanying Uhuru Kenyatta, the ICC indictee, to The Hague with some male ones aiming to hang around the Red Light District of Amsterdam to spend taxpayers’ money on commercial sex workers. Uhuru’s case is personal and he should have asked these politicians to stay at home.
Why has Uhuru surrendered power temporarily to his deputy Ruto? Any time he has been abroad in the past, Ruto automatically assumed the presidency. Maybe Uhuru is scared that he will be banged up in an ICC cell never to come back.
Meanwhile, “Lawyer Kiprono Matagei has moved to court to get an order compelling Chief Justice Willy Mutunga to swear in William Ruto as President for the remaining three years of the term of Jubilee coalition.
Mr Matagei, in his court papers, argues that Uhuru Kenyatta’s surrender of instruments of power and the presidential motorcade is construed as resignation within the meaning of Article 146 (1) (b).
The Article states: The office of President shall become vacant if the holder of the office — resigns, in writing, addressed to the Speaker of the National Assembly.
Mr Matagei filed the application at the High Court in Nairobi.”
http://www.nation.co.ke/news/politics/Lawyer-in-court-to-have-Ruto-sworn-as-President/-/1064/2477936/-/cjnhin/-/index.html
Watch Uhuru Kenyatta’s ICC Status Conference – 8 Oct 2014
http://www.kenyamoja.com/live/