With less than a week to next Tuesday’s commencement of trial against the two over the 2007/2008 post-election violence, Bensouda on Monday revealed the final details of the prosecution witnesses.
Besides disclosing identities of the witnesses, the prosecutor gave summaries of their anticipated testimony and their relevance in the case against Ruto and Sang.
Bensouda has also given estimated times that each will take in the witness box during their examination-in-chief, where they will give accounts of involvement of the two in the skirmishes that followed the General Election and leading to the death of an estimated 1,300 people.
Pull out
The filing of the final list follows an order made by the trial court.
Bensouda said she had given the list of witnesses in sequential order based on the prosecution’s assessments.
The prosecutor appears to be also factoring in a possibility that more could pull out of the case, and has thus indicated to the court that in such an eventuality, she would seek the judges’ help to vary the order of the appearance of witnesses.
“Should any of the witnesses be unable or unwilling to testify, the prosecution will approach the court to vary this order,” she says
In a confidential document, Bensouda has given the list of the witnesses and their order, while in a separate document, also indicated as confidential, she has given updated summaries of the main facts on which each witness is expected to testify.
“The summaries also include an introductory statement, which states the relevance of the testimony relative to the charges,” she says.
Meanwhile, Ruto wants the panel of judges to overturn a decision rejecting his application for his trial to be moved to either Kenya or Tanzania.
In a fresh application to the ICC President, Ruto through his lawyer Karim Khan wants the Panel of Judges to be reconvened to reconsider the decision, which he said was arrived at after a process dogged by “procedural unfairness”.
He claims that the prosecution filed additional submissions on the eve of the convening of the plenary, which denied the defence team, and importantly interested parties, Kenya and Tanzania, the opportunity to give their submissions before the judges gave their verdict.
- The Standard
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