Court says Kenyatta’s case tossed
Prosecution finds evidence lacking
PARIS — The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, announced Friday that its chief prosecutor has withdrawn charges of crimes against humanity against President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya.
The announcement came in a court filing in which the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said: “The prosecution withdraws the charges against Mr. Kenyatta. The evidence has not improved to such an extent that Mr. Kenyatta’s responsibility can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The prosecutor said her office had the right to file new charges at a later date if more evidence was found.
Kenyatta, the first sitting president to appear before the court, had been accused of helping to orchestrate and finance a wave of ethnic violence after disputed elections in 2007, in which more than 1 , 200 people died and 600,000 fled their homes.
The start of his trial had been postponed five times.
The collapse of the case was a setback for the court and demonstrated the limits of its powers. Judges said the Kenyan government had acted “not in good faith” by withholding vital evidence.
On Wednesday, the judges told the prosecutor that she would have to proceed within a week or drop the charges. But they declined to terminate the case themselves or enter a ruling of innocence as requested by the defense.
Fergal Gaynor, a defense lawyer for the victims, said the decision “will inevitably disappoint the estimated 20,000 victims of the crimes.”
“Their quest for justice has now been frustrated, both in Kenya and at the ICC,” he said.
As soon as the decision was announced, celebrations broke out in different parts of the country, especially in the areas populated by Kenyatta’s ethnic Kikuyu people. Crowds sang and danced in downtown Nairobi, the capital. In Nyahururu, a predominantly Kikuyu town in the north, hundreds of celebrators blocked the main highway, causing a traffic snarl.
Peter Kariuki, chairman of a local displaced persons camp in Nyahururu, said: “It’s true that we were evicted from our homes in Rift Valley, and all along we knew Uhuru was innocent. His deputy president is innocent too as he’s not among those who killed our mothers and children. The prosecution should have visited us so that we can show them the perpetrators. We are thankful to God as our president is now free.”
But Gaynor said the victims he represents in court “were among the tens of thousands of people in Naivasha and Nakuru who were targeted for no reason other than that they belonged to the wrong tribe.”
“Men were beheaded in the streets,” he said. “Human heads were paraded on sticks. Women were serially raped, and then doused in paraffin and set alight. Children were burned alive. Houses and tiny business premises were pillaged and destroyed in their thousands. The surviving victims of those crimes have received no justice from the Kenyan criminal justice system. Most received no compensation. Thousands now live in abject poverty.”
Kenyatta, one of the richest men in Africa, had always tried to distance himself from the bloodletting in Kenya during the chaotic election period of 2007 and 2008.
The son of Kenya’s founding father, Jomo Kenyatta, Uhuru Kenyatta was elected president last year after teaming up with another suspect of the International Criminal Court, now Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto.