NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 17 – A meeting between lawyers acting for security officers who are to give evidence to investigators of International Criminal Court (ICC) failed to kick off on Wednesday.
Lawyer Evans Monari said the ICC detectives did not show up for the meeting and gave no explanation.
The meeting was to take place ahead of the statement-taking from Provincial Commissioners and Police Chiefs who were deployed to trouble spots during the 2008 post-election violence.
“The ICC undertook to appear today (Wednesday). For unexplained reasons, the ICC did not attend the meeting, and they did not give any reasons why they did not attend. We were disappointed about that,” he said.
The lawyer said the meeting was supposed to be a pre-trial conference before the commencement of the actual statement recording from the PCs and PPOs next Wednesday.
He said he did not understand why the ICC officials downplayed its importance.
Mr Monari who spoke on behalf of other lawyers said he had made four requests to the Office of the ICC Prosecutor which were supposed to have been ironed out during Wednesday’s meeting.
The lawyer said he expected the issues to be resolved before the security officials start recording their statements: “The November 24 date given by the judge (Kalpana Rawal) is tentative until the issues we have requested are clarified.”
He said it was critical for the ICC to assure those giving evidence that their rights would be protected and respected and added that the security officials were ready to start with statement recording and it was only for the ICC to clarify the issues in question.
He however could not disclose the exact doubts they had.
Earlier, Lady Justice Rawal excused the ICC officials saying they had sent apologies for failing to attend the meeting.
She said they would be present on Monday morning.
She also re-confirmed that security officials will start recording their statements next Wednesday.
Justice Rawal two weeks ago said10 witnesses were listed for the statement taking and that it would take about three days.
She warned the media against naming and exposing the witnesses and added that the process would be very private to protect the witnesses.
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