The ICC prosecution reacts to the contents of an article titled: “ICC damned as ‘amateur’ by the British lawyers of acquitted Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta”.
On Sunday, Paul Peachy, a crime correspondent, reported that Kenyatta’s lawyers were particularly critical of how the ICC handled their client’s case.
“Very, very amateur with a lack of professionalism and a lack of rigour.” That’s what Kenyatta’s lawyer Gary Summers called the ICC, according to the article published by The Independent.
The Office of the Prosecutor responded to The Hague Trials Kenya’s questions about the allegations with the following message:
In December last year, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda withdrew the case against Kenyatta saying that there was no “reasonable prospect of conviction given the evidence at [her] disposal.” According to Bensouda, the case crumbled because of three key factors:
Some witnesses had died, while others were too terrified to testify;
Crucial witnesses had either recanted or changed their testimonies;
the Kenyan government had failed to adequately cooperate with her office
The two statements the prosecution refers to in its response are:
- Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on the status of the Government of Kenya’s cooperation with the prosecution’s investigations in the Kenyatta case
- Statement of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, on the withdrawal of charges against Mr. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatt
