NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 5 -The Cabinet committee on International Criminal Court (ICC) matters held a closed-door meeting at Harambee House on Monday morning but details remained sketchy.
A member of the committee told Capital News that the ‘routine meeting’ discussed the ongoing confirmation of charges hearings but declined to give further details.
“This is one of our routine meetings, but as you know the confirmation of charges hearings is going on. Of course that is one of the things we talked about,” the source asserted.
The committee met a week after the government lost its bid to challenge the admissibility of the two cases before The Hague based court after the Appeals Chambers ruled that the case was properly before the court.
Judge Daniel David Ntanda Nsereko, the Presiding Judge for the appeals court explained that for the ICC cases to be inadmissible, a national investigation must be ongoing and must cover the same individuals and substantially the same conduct as alleged in the proceedings before the international war crimes court.
The Kenyan government has argued that it was capable of investigating the six suspects and even has gone ahead to question some of them to prove to the ICC that there was an ongoing local process.
On September 1, the government lost yet another bid to send two representatives to the ongoing confirmation of charges hearings.
Presiding Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova ruled that the Kenyan Government had no role in the proceedings before the international court.
Meanwhile, suspended Industrialisation Minister Henry Kosgey was due to take the stand at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday at 4pm Kenyan time to defend himself against war crimes allegations following the 2007 general elections.
Mr Kosgey is being represented by lawyer George Oraro and is assisted by Julius Kemboy and Mr Kosgey’s son, Allan.
Mr Kosgey was last week accused of heading a network that perpetrated the violence alongside Eldoret North MP William Ruto.
He was also accused of using coded words like ‘weeds’ to refer to the Kikuyus during the attacks.
On Saturday, Eldoret North MP William Ruto’s witnesses Samson Cherambos and John Koech strongly countered the allegations.
The Prosecution told the court how Mr Kosgey, Mr Ruto and Radio personality Joshua arap Sang held meetings to plan for the attacks in 2007.
After the confirmation of charges hearings end next Monday for the trio, the court will make a ruling by December on if the case against the three suspects will proceed to the trial or not.
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