Paul Gicheru termed Bensouda’s ICC claims as “absurd” and “nonsense”
Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru, who was found dead in his house on Monday, had last year dismissed claims by ICC prosecutor that he was responsible for scuttling the case against President William Ruto.
In May 2021, through his lawyer Michael Karnavas, Gicheru termed the claims by the prosecution as “absurd” and “nonsense”.
Gicheru was asking the judges not to confirm the charges against him as there is no evidence that he was a member of any common plan to identify, locate, and corruptly influence prosecution witnesses.
“The OTP offers no evidence that Mr. Gicheru was “associated with and/or [a] supporter of RUTO at the relevant times,” Karnavas tells the court.
The court however confirmed the charges and Gicheru stood trial in a case that closed in June and now awaiting the decision of the judges.
The trial opened on February 15, 2022, before Trial Chamber III with Gicheru pleading not guilty to all charges. 8 witnesses testified for the prosecution with the last one finishing on March 24, 2022.
The Office of the Prosecutor completed its presentation of evidence on March 29, 2022. The Defence announced on April 25, 2022, that it will not present any evidence.
Gicheru surrendered before the ICC last in 2020 following an arrest warrant issued by the Hague-based court over allegations of witness interference.
On April 5, 2016, Trial Chamber V(A) decided, by a majority that the case against Ruto and Sang is to be terminated. The parties have not appealed this decision.
The case also involved former industrialization Minister Henry Kosgey. Judges declined to confirm the charges against Kosgey on January 23, 2012.
The then ICC prosecutor, Bensouda told the court that she has a number of conversations between intermediaries acting for Gicheru and his associates that were recorded by the Prosecution Witnesses they were targeting.
“In these recordings, the Intermediaries themselves explain important details of the Common Plan to the targeted witnesses in their own words,” Bensouda told the court in her latest filing.
But Gicheru termed the Document Containing Charges filed by Bensouda in the case against him as an “alluring house of cards.”
“Flawed, flimsy, and fallacious, all assertions and arguments collapse when the evidence is diligently scrutinized and weighed in context against the deficiencies of the OTP’s witness statements and testimony – individually and collectively,” Gicheru’s submitted.
It is the DOC that the prosecution convinces the judges to confirm the charges brought against the individual.
Bensouda told the court that Gicheru was “a direct perpetrator, co-perpetrator or accessory” and was criminally responsible for a concerted campaign of witness interference in the case of The Prosecutor vs William Samoei Ruto and Joshua Arap Sang.
“Through promises and actual payments of bribes, threats, and intimidation, Gicheru and his associates perverted the course of justice in that case, directly contributing to its collapse,” Bensouda told the court.
But Gicheru dismissed the claims by the prosecution saying that Bensouda had offered hearsay evidence to the court as the witnesses who allegedly recorded the statements were unavailable.
“Beneath the surface of the cosmetically impressive 170-page DCC and the OTP’s glossy rendition of the events that it claims demonstrates that Mr. Gicheru corruptly influenced OTP witnesses, is a pervading pattern of calculated neglect of evidence, abject disregard of context, and reckless abandonment of fairness and discernment,” Gicheru’s lawyer tells the court.
Gicheru also argued that the prosecution cherry-picks the evidence, “artfully ignoring inconsistencies, improbabilities, contradictions, lack of corroborations, compartmentalizing and presenting it out of context and devoid of relevant evidence.”
“The OTP absurdly claims that the Chamber should ignore the quality of the evidence and essentially make findings and conclusions on the quantity of evidence. Nonsense,” Karvanas told the court.
“The OTP offers contradictory and inconsistent evidence from unreliable witnesses who frequently contacted each other and schemed together on how to secure benefits from the ICC. The OTP claims that these witnesses corroborate each other yet provides no substantiation and no independent indicia of reliability for virtually all of this evidence,” Gicheru argued.
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