ICC SUSPECT IN A CASE CONCERNING DP RUTO TO BE RELEASED

The International Criminal Court has invited the Kenyan government to present its views on Paul Gicheru’s request for conditional release from detention in The Hague.

The government has until November 26 to submit its views. This is according to the orders issued by judge Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou. The government will have to decide if they want Gicheru to return back to Kenya.

In its submissions, the government will also be required to give certain undertakings “to enforce one or more conditions restricting liberty the Chamber could potentially impose.”

Those conditions include the requirement that Mr Gicheru will not be allowed to travel outside Kenya without the explicit agreement of the Chamber, that he must not go to certain places or associate with certain persons as specified by the Pre-Trial Chamber, that he must not contact directly or indirectly victims or witnesses, that he must not engage in certain professional activities, that he must reside at a particular address as specified by the Pre-Trial Chamber, and that he must respond when summoned by an authority or a qualified person designated by the Pre-Trial Chamber.

“In this regard, the Chamber specifically requests Kenya to provide observations as to its willingness and ability to facilitate the possibility of Mr Gicheru travelling between Kenya and the Netherlands for the purposes of the proceedings in the present case,” the order states.

It will be interesting to see how the president and the government will respond to this. The president had vowed that he will never allow any Kenyan to be tried in the Hague again.

The relationship of the government and the Hague based court has also not been the best. Addressing the collapse of the ICC cases, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda accused the government of not fully cooperating with the court.

It is strange that Gicheru is now asking for a release from detention. He surrendered himself to the ICC on November 2, nearly five years after his indictment for allegedly tampering in the case against Deputy William Ruto.

The government has avoided commenting on the matter that caught many Kenyans off guard. Many have speculated about the motives of his surrender but he has told the pretrial chamber that he surrendered on his own volition.

“As to the condition so my surrender I wish to confirm to this court that I surrendered myself first to the Dutch authorities, then to the court. This surrender was without coercion or urging from anybody. I did it on my own volition and at my cost,” he said.

He had been holding senior public service positions for a number of years, the latest being as the chairman of the Export Processing Zones Authority (EPZA).

The ICC prosecutor accuses him of corruptly influencing six witnesses who were set to testify against Dr Ruto by paying bribes and drawing affidavits they used to recant their testimony to the ICC.

According to the order by judge Alapini-Gansou, “The Prosecutor does not oppose the Interim Release Request”, which means Mr Gicheru could be conditionally set free during the pendency of his case.

The Dutch government has also been asked by the chamber to give views on the conditional release of Mr Gicheru. “The Chamber invites the Netherlands to submit any observations that it, as the host State, considers relevant to the Chamber’s impending decision on the Interim Release Request, including, in particular, as to its willingness and ability to facilitate the possibility of Mr Gicheru travelling between Kenya and the Netherlands, as well as the possibility of Mr Gicheru temporarily residing in the Netherlands, for the purposes of the proceedings in the present case,” the order states.