IJCentral: International Justice Central

The International Criminal Court has requested to use key evidence collected by a Kenya national human rights agency to prove its case to the Pre-Trial judges.

The Hague-based institution has written to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, which played a key role in investigating the chaos that left more than 1,300 people dead, to allow it to screen the database that was constituted in the course of its inquiry.

Sources from the ICC told the Sunday Nation that the office of Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had written to the human rights watchdog early this month seeking the screening of the database that was used to produce the report, “On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya’s Post-2007 Election Violence”.

he report lists politicians and business people linked to both PNU and ODM who could have funded or organised the violence. The list includes six Cabinet ministers – one from PNU and five from ODM – a bishop, Christian and Muslim preachers. The report was presented to the Waki Commission on post-election violence as well as Attorney-General Amos Wako for action.

KNCHR also presented the report to ICC to assist in investigations over the chaos. The violence rocked the country between January and February 2008 following the disputed presidential election results announced on December 30, 2007. Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Agriculture minister William Ruto have moved to court to have their names expunged from the report.

The ICC sources said that the letter to KNCHR signed by Ms Beatrice Le Fraper du Hellen, the Director in charge of the Jurisdiction, Complementarily and Cooperation division, said the screening of the database was crucial for the investigations.

In November, Mr Moreno-Ocampo requested authorisation from the Pre-Trial Chamber to initiate an investigation into the Kenyan situation. Last week, ICC judges asked Mr Moreno-Ocampo for more information on Kenya’s post-election violence before they could rule on the application to open investigations.

The judges want the prosecutor to provide “clarification and additional information in the process of assessing whether or not to authorise an official investigation by the ICC”. The prosecutor has until March 3 to provide supporting information to the judges.

On Thursday, KNCHR vice-chairman Hassan Omar confirmed the commission had received the request from ICC but could not reveal the progress made in providing data for screening. “We have received the request. We are still in discussions,” Mr Omar said.

It was not clear whether the agency would provide the information needed by the ICC before Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s date with the judges. The KNCHR dossier is meant to consolidate the prosecutor’s evidence as Mr Omar’s team is regarded by many to have conducted most credible investigations on the post-poll chaos and its report also played a key role in compilation of the Waki List.

The KNCHR, which has been vocal in pushing for action on perpetrators of Kenya’s worst violence, had earlier submitted evidence to the ICC on analysis of all data but did not reveal the potential witness details. The database screening is expected to provide specific evidence on individuals said to have fanned the chaos.

“The evidence will be used to boost information on crimes against humanity that could have been committed,” the source said. He added: “What the ICC wants is specific evidence, for instance, of eyewitnesses by KNCHR and specific responsibilities of some of the individuals. It’s good that KNCHR tries to do so before March 3 so that Mr Moreno-Ocampo can use the information in his response to Pre-Trial Chambers.”

Mr Omar said KNCHR believes the evidence the ICC has is sufficient to launch investigations. Asked if Mr Ruto’s and Mr Kenyatta’s move to go to court could stop the ICC from using the document, Mr Omar said: “The court will determine that.’’

“I believe the ICC can carry out independent investigations without reference to KNCHR,” Mr Omar added. Mr Omar said the agency expects the ICC process to move fast after March 3, if the Pre-Trial Chamber gives Mr Moreno-Ocampo permission to launch investigations.

“The prosecutor can commence investigations immediately, to ease protection of witnesses as more delays could make evidence disappear,” Mr Omar said.

Electioneering

It is crucial for the ICC process to start before the electioneering period to avoid heightening political temperatures. The KNCHR vice-chairman said his body will push for government officials and ministers indicted by the ICC to step down immediately. “Every person so indicted should step down and be handed over to the ICC,” Mr Omar said.

Although the government has indicated support for the formation of a local tribunal, the effort has been futile. Mr Moreno-Ocampo visited Kenya late last year and met with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga where he proposed a three-tier system to ensure justice over the violence.

Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who chaired a meeting that brokered the peace deal, handed over to Mr Moreno-Ocampo an envelope believed to contain names of people suspected to have instigated the violence which mainly affected Nairobi, Rift Valley and western Kenya.

The claims of alleged war crimes committed, according to the Goldstone report, during fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas in late 2008 and early 2009 will not reach the International Criminal Court at the Hague, a former ICC official told Haaretz on Sunday.

Legal attorney Nick Kaufman, who had served as a senior prosecutor at the ICC and a senior district attorney for the Jerusalem prosecution, said Israeli officials were likely safe from war crimes suits as the U.S. would probably veto such a move.

Until a month ago Kaufman, an expert on international law and rules of warfare, served as a senior lawyer in the Jerusalem prosecutor’s office.

- Nick Kaufman, do you think you will represent an Israeli official, who has been charged with committing war crimes following the Goldstone report, at the international court?

Kaufman: “I don’t believe so. I think the Goldstone report will receive a poor man’s burial.”

- You sound decisive.

” I don’t understand how the United Nations Security Council has made a decision to transfer the case to the international criminal court at The Hague, because I think in any event, the United States will veto the decision.”

“The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said he was satisfied with the investigation Israel has conducted, but the Arab League and other unidentified countries have insisted that a new investigation be conducted in the next 5 months. I don’t see it going beyond this.”

“On the other hand, I don’t believe the senior prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, will yield to the Palestinians request and order an investigation against Israel: For him to accept the Palestinian request to recognize their court authority to try and judge the violations committed on their land, he would first have to recognize the Palestinian Authority as an independent country, and I cant see him making such an extreme decision. I just don’t see it happening.”

Where did you first meet Judge Richard Goldstone?

“Before he headed the inquiry committee, Goldstone was the recipient of a scholarship and he served for a few months at The Hague. When rumors spread about his appointment to the committee that will investigate the events in Gaza, I went to hear him speaking at the central library in Hague.”

“I gave him a letter from Noam Shalit, in which he wrote that Gilad’s captivity is against international law, and that t should be declared a war crime and a breach of the Geneva Convention. It also said that he should recommend that he be released when he is appointed head of the committee.”

And what did he say?

“He got back to me several hours afterwards, and told me that he was touched by Gilad’s story in a personal manner, and he understands the concern. Eventually, the report he wrote has a legal mistake regarding the conditions of Gilad’s captivity.”

Do you agree with the Israel’s criticism against him?

“I think the personal criticism against him did him injustice. He might be naive, but I think that Goldstone is an Israel supporter. I don’t think he estimated the extent of the personal hatred Israel expressed towards him.”

“I think that the politician’s slander of him during the committee and after it, damaged israel’s image in the international community, as Israel did not understand what a respected legal personality Goldstone is. A man who served as the supreme prosecutor of two international courthouses knows something about violation of rules of warfare. Saying that he is stupid and knows nothing projects on us.”

The argument is that he claimed sole mandate of a unilateral investigation.

“This is a basic mistake, which I know has frustrated Goldstone extremely. I met with him several months later, at a MacArthur foundation event where they were honoring him for his work in the international legal arena, and he came up to me and expressed deep frustration from the fact that Israel is not allowing him to enter Sderot to hear eyewitness testimonies, and also to enter Gaza from Israel.”

“He was frustrated as he was the one who requested from the Human Rights Council in Geneva to extend the investigation to cover both the Palestinian and the Israeli actions in the Gaza War, and for some reason, even after the publication of the report Israel still criticized the report as being unilateral.”

Did you hear him express any affinity to Israel or Judaism?

“I remember when Noam Shalit brought him Gilad’s childhood book “when the shark and the fish first met,” during their meeting last year, he didn’t know how to read the book and opened it on the wring side. I remember thinking to myself, how come a Jew who prays every year at Yom Kippur doesn’t know how to hold a book in Hebrew.”

- You worked directly under the senior prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who also has the authority to order an investigation against Israel following the Gaza war. What can you tell us about him?

Ocampo’s position is not strong. He has been hit by strong criticism of his performance, as he has failed convict even one person in the international criminal court during his tenure. I estimate that his position is unstable, and he won’t want to interfere with such a controversial subject.

If you think the Goldstone report will be buried, there is no point in erecting a committee to investigate the war crime allegations during the Gaza offensive.

“Because I don’t see the affair reaching the International court, I also don’t see a real - legal, political and international - reason to establish a committee. But at the same time, I think that there are ethical merits in establishing a committee for internal reasons, in which we can look at ourselves in light of the criticism the world and the report has voiced against us. I don’t think we have a reason to fear the investigation.

source:  Haaretz

Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, has told judges presiding over his genocide trial that the Bosnian wars during the 1990s were “just and holy”.

Karadzic addressed the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on Monday, ending his months-long boycott of the proceedings.

He told that court that the Bosnian Serbs had defended themselves against Islamic fundamentalists who had started the war in Bosnia to lay claim to the entire country.

“I will defend that nation of ours and their cause that is just and holy. We have a good case. We have good evidence and proof,” he said.

‘Reluctant’ Serbs

Karadzic, dressed in a dark suit and tie, traced the origins of the 1992-95 war to the rejection by Bosnia’s Muslim leadership of any power-sharing proposal.

He argued that conflicts resulting from the break-up of Yugoslavia were a natural consequence of the struggle for land.

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in The Hague, said that Karadzic had appeared as “unapologetic, proud, at times even veering to sarcasm”.

“Overall the tone of Mr Karadzic is proud, defiant, what he’s saying is that there was certainly no plot on the part of the Bosnian Serbs to exterminate the Muslim, or Croat community,” said Phillips.

“Certainly not to ethically cleanse them out of any part of Bosnia.

“Rather the Serbs very reluctantly acquiesced in Bosnia’s secession from Serbia, from Yugoslavia at that time, they didn’t want that secession to happen.

“And even then it was Muslim desire for domination in Bosnia, and the nefarious interference of Western powers, perhaps in particular Germany, which took Bosnia into civil war, and not the acts of the Serbs themselves.

“It’s an interesting defence, and it’s a defence which I think will surprise many people in Western Europe and indeed in the Muslim world.”

‘Greater Serbia’

Addressing the court, Karadzic said: “I stand here before you not to defend the mere mortal that I am, but to defend the greatness of a small nation in Bosnia Herzegovina.

“Which for 500 years has had to suffer and has demonstrated a great deal of modesty and perseverance to survive in freedom.”

The wartime Bosnian Serb leader is accused of having colluded with Slobodan Milosevic, the late Yugoslav leader, with the aim of creating a “Greater Serbia” that was to include 60 per cent of Bosnian territory.

Karadzic stands charged as the “supreme commander” of an ethnic cleansing campaign of Croats and Muslims in the Bosnian war in which 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million displaced.

He is facing 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but though he denies any wrongdoing, he has refused to enter a formal plea.

Among the charges against Karadzic are the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of more than 7,000 captured Muslim men and boys, and the 44-month siege of the capital Sarajevo that ended in November 1995, leaving about 10,000 people dead.

Hasan Nuhanovic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who lost his parents and brother there, spoke to Al Jazeera from Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

Nuhanovic said: “Radovan Karadzic is being tried in The Hague, it’s very important.

“But, it’s even more important, in my opinion, that the shooters, the people who killed my family, who still live in my neighbourhood, not really far from where I live, they are still free. And they have not been prosecuted.

“So while their leader is being tried in the The Hague, I expect the authorities of this country to try the war criminals who still live here in our neighbourhood, that’s very important as well for this community.”

Trial boycott

Karadzic had refused to attend the opening of his trial last October, insisting on more time to prepare his case and causing a four-month delay. 

He had sought a new delay of the trial until June 17 after his two-day opening statement concludes on Tuesday, to study an additional 400,000 pages of prosecution evidence he claims have been filed since October.

His request was refused by the court which ruled last Friday that the first prosecution witness, whose identity is being withheld, will testify on Wednesday.

Under these circumstances, Karadzic was likely to resume his boycott, said Marko Sladojevic, his legal adviser.

In November, the court appointed Richard Harvey, a British lawyer, to take over the defence if Karadzic opted to continue his boycott of the court.

Nato manhunt

First indicted in 1995, Karadzic eluded a Nato manhunt for more than a decade before being caught in July 2008 in Belgrade, where he had been living as a new-age philosopher.

Karadzic faces possible life imprisonment if convicted in what is one of the last and largest cases brought to the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The UN Security Council, which set up the tribunal in 1993, has ordered it not to open new cases.

The tribunal has indicted 161 political and military officials, of which 40 cases are still continuing.

Two fugitives, Karadzic’s former top general, Ratko Mladic, and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, could still be brought to trial at The Hague.

Karadzic is scheduled to return to the courtroom on Tuesday to present the rest of his opening statement.

Source: Al Jazeera

The University of Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies released a podcast recently with Radovan Karadzic’s chief legal advisor Peter Robinson. Here is what they said:

In the lead-up to the Radovan Karadzic trial which begins in The Hague on Monday, 1 March, Karadzic’s chief legal advisor, Peter Robinson, spoke candidly to a packed Oxford lecture theatre about the trial, the character of Karadzic and the challenges of defending high profile suspects at the ICTY and the ICTR. This was Mr. Robinson’s only at-length presentation internationally before the start of the trial.

In order to listen to the podcast click here.

Massacres of civilians, rape, torture and looting have plagued the Darfur region in Sudan for eight years. The horrors are the result of clashes between armed militants who have come to dominate the region and forces backed by the government in Khartoum. Two million people have become refugees, and more than 200,000 are believed to have died. In March last year, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity.

Al-Bashir could be arrested if he travels to any of the ICC’s 110 member countries. At present, rebel leaders or politicians from Uganda, the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Sudan are either being tried by the ICC or are in the process of being indicted. The Kenyan government is also facing an ICC investigation into post-election violence.

The ICC was established in July 2002 under the Rome Statute signed four years earlier. The court is charged with indicting and punishing war criminals and people who have committed crimes against humanity, including genocide, torture, rape and other inhumane acts. It consists of 18 justices and one prosecutor and is headquartered in the Dutch capital of The Hague.

Korea became the 83rd member of the ICC in 2002. Former Seoul National University law professor Song Sang-hyun, who has served as a judge at the ICC since 2003, was elected president of the court in March last year for a three-year term.

Now a human rights forum hosted by the Korean Bar Association discussed the issue of sending North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and other high-ranking officials in the communist country to the ICC, and it was said that this could be done if South Korea and Japan can prove that the North abducted their citizens and Kim gave the orders.

A major problem is that arrest warrants issued by the ICC are useless without the cooperation of law enforcement authorities of the countries concerned. That the world’s major powers, China, Russia and the U.S., as well as some Arab states, are not members of the ICC also undermines its power. “Permanent peace cannot be achieved without the realization of justice,” Song has said. “The ICC is the place where people who commit crimes against humanity are brought to justice.” Will the day come when the ICC gets to try North Korean officials for their human rights abuses?

source:  Chosun Ilbo

Darfur rebel group, backed by Chad, to sign power-sharing deal with Sudanese president; comprehensive peace likely to remain elusive

The most powerful Darfur rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, is scheduled to sign a truce with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir Tuesday in Doha, Qatar. The deal, negotiated in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, was spurred along by the recent pledge from Sudan and Chad to quit fueling the proxy war on their border.

The cease-fire is supposed to lay the groundwork for a formal peace deal to be completed by March 15, though a Justice and Equality Movement spokesman told Reuters that such a deadline was unrealistic. The final agreement is to incorporate elements of power-sharing, prisoner amnesty, and the integration of rebel forces in the Sudanese army.  Other rebel groups have not signed on to the deal.

Also expected in attendance at the signing ceremony is Chadian President Idriss Deby, whose presence underscores the shadow role that Sudan’s western neighbor has played both in fueling the long-running war in the Darfur region, and, now, in possibly ending this segment of the conflict.

A senior communication official in Bashir’s ruling party, Rabi Abdulaati, told VOA that the apparent rapprochement between the two countries set the stage for the agreement.

“The normalization of relations between Chad and Sudan definitely has a great role in this breakthrough between JEM and the Sudan government. I think also the visit by the president of Chad also has resulted in this frame agreement between the two parties,” Abdulaati said.

JEM was one of two main rebel groups that rose against Khartoum in 2003, complaining of the western region’s marginalization.  Most agree that JEM is now the strongest of the fractured Darfur rebel groups on the ground.

The group’s leader, former government official Khalil Ibrahim, is from the Zaghawa tribe, as is most of JEM’s leadership. Chadian President Deby is also Zaghawan, and has been accused of arming Ibrahim’s rebellion in Darfur.

But this month at a rare meeting between the Sudanese and Chadian heads of states, the two agreed to end support for each other’s rebellions. President Bashir is facing an election in April and is hoping to shore up support and stability in the vote-rich Darfur region, and President Deby is also beginning to get ready for upcoming polls.

Analysts say Chad’s support for the peace arrangement could be the key factor that separates this cease-fire from previous short-lived deals. JEM is already claiming that Sudanese forces have broken the truce, though the rebel group says it is still committed to the peace framework.

If the deal does manage to result in an end of hostilities between JEM and Khartoum, comprehensive peace in Darfur will still likely remain an elusive goal.

The other main rebel group on the ground, the Sudan Liberation Movement faction still aligned to exiled-leader Abdel Wahid al-Nur, has refused to join the peace talks. While JEM holds Islamist ideological ties with the Khartoum regime, SLA is an ethnic Fur-dominated rebellion seeking secular rule. Paris-based founder Abdel Wahid is reported to continue to enjoy wide popular support among the displaced populations on the ground.

More than 300,000 were killed and millions displaced in the conflict as Khartoum mobilized Arab militias to destroy the rebels’ bases of support. Khartoum rejects the casualty figures.

source: VOA News

Fighters from the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have killed two civilians and abducted dozens of others after launching attacks on a town in the Central African Republic.

LRA fighters armed with machetes and clubs carried out the attacks on the town of Rafai in the eastern Central African Republic on Friday.

The attack left two dead and several others injured, according to local media reports.

Some 30 others have been reported either kidnapped or missing.

The attack was the third in the region in less than two weeks blamed on the LRA.

The rebel group is said to be using its military base in the Democratic Republic of Congo to unleash the attacks across the porous borders with neighboring countries.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. He has been on the run since 2009, when Uganda and regional countries launched a multinational operation to pursue the rebels into the northeast DRC.

Kony is now believed to be trapped in a swampy forest, surrounded by Ugandan forces, but some remnants of his loyal fighters frequently go on deadly rampages in neighboring countries.

source: Press TV

When Kofi Annan received a sealed envelope from Justice Philip Waki in Nairobi last October, the chief mediator of the Kenyan post-election crisis might not have anticipated the domino effect of that simple gesture.

There have been more ripples since then. Political analysts trace the tipping point for the troubled coalition government to the moment it became apparent that names of some top people in PNU and ODM were on the Waki list.

The current stalemate between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga over who has the powers to discipline two ministers regarding corruption allegations has pushed the coalition to the brink of collapse.

Hassan Omar Hassan, the vice-chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), says the release of the Waki report created competing alliances of politicians apprehensive that prosecutions might damage their political careers on the one hand and others hoping to benefit from such action on the other hand.

“The net effect of the Waki list is that former allies within both parties broke ranks, creating an alliance of people fighting for their political lives and another one of those who don’t want to be seen to be associating with them. It may also determine who the main players in the political field will be in 2012,” says Mr Hassan.

Currently in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the contents of Waki envelope are widely expected to form the basis of anticipated high-profile prosecutions of the Kenyan case at The Hague.

The fallout over the Waki envelope has not just changed the country’s political landscape; it has also shaken the coalition to the core and set in motion events that put in doubt chances of the coalition surviving to the next General Election in 2012.

A third political force gravitating around key PNU figures and a grouping of their counterparts in ODM has significantly weakened the Orange party’s position in the Cabinet and Parliament and tipped the balance of power in the coalition in favour of PNU. It also threatens Mr Odinga’s role as supervisor and coordinator of government affairs while strengthening President Kibaki’s grip.

In the wake of President Kibaki overturning Mr Odinga’s decision to suspend Agriculture minister William Ruto and Education minister Sam Ongeri, the new alliance has smelt blood and appears set to move in for the kill when Parliament reopens this week.

PNU plans to bring a motion to the House seeking to have Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka installed as Leader of Government Business after Mr Odinga’s claim to the same post caused a stalemate last year.

Rebel ODM MPs have in the past indicated they would support a vote of no-confidence against the PM if it were brought to the House. Mr Ruto and Tourism minister Najib Balala have publicly stated they would defy a party position requiring ODM ministers to boycott Cabinet meetings over the current crisis.

Anxiety over the Waki envelope is set to build once again as MPs prepare to debate the Witness Protection Bill, which seeks to secure crucial evidence needed to prosecute post-election violence and set the stage for the next round of investigations by the ICC. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor, is expected to indict the key suspects between June and July.

Back home, a move by Mr Moreno-Ocampo on the suspects may yet prove to be Mr Odinga’s worst nightmare. Not only will it add fuel to the growing opposition against him, it is also likely to erode his popularity among a section of voters considered key to his presidential bid in 2012.

Pockets of demonstrations were reported in parts of Rift Valley Province after the PM announced he had suspended the two ministers. A group of internally displaced persons also attempted to march over 200 km from their camp in Nyahururu to State House, Nairobi, to demand compensation. The two incidents are seen as lending credence to fears that taking action against prominent people could cause political instability in the country.

“It will be politically risky for Mr Odinga to appear to be supporting The Hague trials because he is likely to be alienated in Parliament and government. But it is a risk he has to take if he wants to boost his presidential ambitions in 2012. He enjoys some leverage because the issue of justice for post-election violence victims is popular with the public,” Mr Hassan said.

The KNCHR deputy chief also describes fears that the country will erupt into violence in the event the key suspects are charged exaggerated, citing the examples of Sudan, Liberia and Yugoslavia which have experienced relative peace despite international courts indicting their presidents.

“If people who controlled huge armies and militia groups were indicted and the citizens in those countries moved on with their lives, what of one or two politicians in Kenya? The majority of Kenyans want to live in peace and justice,” he said.

source: The Sunday Nation

 

The massacre of more than 150 opposition supporters in Guinea last year in all likelihood amounted to a crime against humanity, investigators from the International Criminal Court (ICC) have said.

Fatou Bensouda, the deputy prosecutor of the ICC, and her team spent three days in the West African nation collecting evidence about the killings carried out by presidential guards on September 28.

“As the deputy prosecutor of the ICC, I have gathered from this visit the feeling that crimes against humanity were committed,” Bensouda told reporters in the capital Conakry, on Friday.

“On the basis of the information that we have received from this visit, we will pursue our preliminary investigation.”

A United Nations report released in December blamed the then-leader of the country’s military government, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, for the massacre.

The massacre occurred as opposition supporters staged a rally amid concerns that Camara - who seized power in 2008 after the death of Lansana Conte, the president - was planning to renege on a pledge to hold civilian elections.

Besides scores who died after soldiers opened fire in the city’s main sports stadium, more than 100 women were raped during the incident.

‘Atrocious crimes’

Bensouda said “atrocious crimes” had been committed on September 28 as “men in uniform attacked civilians, they killed and wounded”.

“In full daylight they mistreated, violated and submitted women to unprecedented sexual violence.”

Despite her conclusions, Bensouda said Guinea could become an example if it was willing to bring the main perpetrators to justice.

“These few days working in Guinea confirmed that Guinean institutions and the ICC can work in a complementary way: either Guinean authorities can prosecute the main people in charge themselves, or they will turn to the court to do it,” she said.

However, a commission appointed by the country’s military rulers has already absolved Camara of responsibility.

Since the massacre, Camara has faced an attempt on his life and is recovering in Burkina Faso, while a transitional government has been appointed to steer the country back to civilian rule.

source:  Al Jazeera

19 February 2010 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) today asked for additional information as it decides whether or not to go forward with an investigation into the deadly post-election violence clashes which rocked Kenya in December 2007 and January 2008.

Last November, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought authorization from the Court’s pre-trial chamber to open an investigation into the ethnic violence that erupted following the disputed polls in which President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner over opposition leader Raila Odinga, now the Prime Minister.

Following an inquiry, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan submitted sealed materials about possible crimes to Mr. Moreno-Ocampo in early 2009.

Judges from the pre-trial chamber today “>asked the prosecutor for extra information on the incidents likely to be the focus of an investigation, the groups of people likely to be scrutinized, and any investigations being carried out domestically with regard to potential cases.

They also requested clarification on the linkages between the events, people and acts of violence allegedly committed in Kenya on the one hand, and the policies of a State and organizations on the other.

The prosecutor, who met with both Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga late last year, said that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that the attacks against Kenyan civilians during the post-election violence constitute crimes against humanity under the ICC’s jurisdiction.”

Article 7 of the Rome Statute, under which the ICC operates, defines a crime against humanity as “a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population.”

Kenya became a State Party to the Statute in June 2005 and is now under the jurisdiction of the ICC if genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity are committed within its territory or by its citizens.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga, who agreed to serve in a power-sharing administration following the violence, had promised to cooperate with any investigation.

Under the ICC’s complementarity principle, it can only intervene if there are no national proceedings against those responsible for the crimes.

In a press release issued last November, the prosecution said that “ICC proceedings should go hand in hand with complementary investigations and prosecutions at the national level as well as healing and reconciliation processes.

“These three tracks would complement each other. Kenyans could provide an historic example for the world in how to address and prevent massive crimes.”

The Hague-based ICC is an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes persons accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Currently, four situations are under investigation by the prosecutor: the Darfur region of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR).

source:  UN News Centre