Luis Moreno‐Ocampo
Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
On Monday (31st May, 2011) a team from the Office of the Prosecutor will be in Kenya to discuss protection of witnesses with Kenyan authorities.
We will asses not just the specific protection program, but will also want to
understand the current position of the Government in relation with the Post Electoral
Violence.
On 5 November 2009, President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga stated their commitment to cooperate with the Court. We received strong cooperation, but
since we announced the names of the 6 suspects we have seen a shift in position:
high ranking members of the government are misrepresenting ICC efforts to do
justice for the victims as an attack against Kenyan sovereignty.
They are pursuing regional and political campaigns to stop the case. Not only is
this sending the wrong signal, but it is also promoting a growing climate of fear
that is intimidating potential witnesses and ultimately undermining national and
international investigations.
Our Office is doing what we promised to do: Justice for the victims. It was in the
point 4 of the Agenda. Everyone agreed on the need to clarify the problem before the
next election.
My question to the Kenyan government is this: does the government of Kenya
want justice for the victims? We need an unequivocal answer, an answer that
Kenyans and the world could understand. Is the government of Kenya
protecting witnesses or protecting the suspects from investigation?
That is the question.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Harold Camping reschedules "rapture" for October
California preacher says his apocalyptic prophecy was misunderstood, not wrong, and the end is coming in 5 months.
As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.
Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the Judgment Day message.
Follower Jeff Hopkins also spent a good deal of his own retirement savings on gas money to power his car so people would see its ominous lighted sign showcasing Camping's May 21 warning. As the appointed day drew nearer, Hopkins started making the 100-mile round trip from Long Island to New York City twice a day, spending at least $15 on gas each trip.
"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car," said Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives in Great River, New York. "I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face."
Camping, who made a special appearance before the press at the Oakland headquarters of the media empire Monday evening, apologized for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have." Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, the light dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ's judgment, he said.
The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said, when the apocalypse comes. But because God's judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.
"We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand altogether the spiritual meaning," he said. "The fact is there is only one kind of people who will ascend into heaven ... if God has saved them they're going to be caught up."
It's not the first time the 89-year-old retired civil engineer has been dismissed by the Christian mainstream and has been forced to explain when his prediction didn't come to pass. Camping also prophesized the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but said later that didn't happen then because of a mathematical error.
Monday, rather than give his normal daily broadcast, Camping took questions as a part of his show, "Open Forum," which transmits his biblical interpretations via the group's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website.
Camping's hands shook slightly as he pinned his microphone to his lapel, and as he clutched a worn Bible he spoke in a quivery monotone about some listeners' earthly concerns after giving away possessions in expectation of the Rapture.
Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with their belongings, and those who had fewer would cope, Camping said.
"We're not in the business of financial advice," he said. "We're in the business of telling people there's someone who you can maybe talk to, maybe pray to, and that's God."
But he also said that he wouldn't give away all his possessions ahead of Oct 21.
"I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car," he said. "What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day why would I give it away?"
Apocalyptic thinking has always been part of American religious life and popular culture. Teachings about the end of the world vary dramatically — even within faith traditions — about how they will occur.
Still, the overwhelming majority of Christians reject the idea that the exact date or time of Jesus' return can be predicted.
Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" novels about the end times, recently called Camping's prediction "not only bizarre but 100 percent wrong!" He cited the Bible verse Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows" except God.
"While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they `know' the day and the hour is flat out wrong," LaHaye wrote on his website, leftbehind.com.
Signs of disappointment also were evident online, where groups that had confidently predicted the Rapture — and, in some cases, had spent money to help spread the word through advertisements — took tentative steps to re-establish Internet presences in the face of widespread mockery.
The Pennsylvania-based group eBible Fellowship still has a website with images of May 21 billboards all over the world, but its Twitter feed has changed over from the increasingly confident predictions before the date to circumspect Bible verses that seem to speak to the confusion and hurt many members likely feel.
Camping offered no clues about Family Radio's finances Monday, saying he could not estimate how much had been spent on getting out his prediction nor how much money the nonprofit had taken in as a result. In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.
Josh Ocasion, who works the teleprompter during Camping's live broadcasts in the group's threadbare studio sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader's business, said he enjoyed the production work but he had never fully believed the May 21 prophecy would come true.
"I thought he would show some more human decency in admitting he made a mistake," he said. "We didn't really see that."
Source: CBS
As crestfallen followers of a California preacher who foresaw the world's end strained to find meaning in their lives, Harold Camping revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.
Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before global cataclysm struck the planet, said Monday that he felt so terrible when his doomsday message did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 recreational vehicles plastered with the Judgment Day message.
Follower Jeff Hopkins also spent a good deal of his own retirement savings on gas money to power his car so people would see its ominous lighted sign showcasing Camping's May 21 warning. As the appointed day drew nearer, Hopkins started making the 100-mile round trip from Long Island to New York City twice a day, spending at least $15 on gas each trip.
"I've been mocked and scoffed and cursed at and I've been through a lot with this lighted sign on top of my car," said Hopkins, 52, a former television producer who lives in Great River, New York. "I was doing what I've been instructed to do through the Bible, but now I've been stymied. It's like getting slapped in the face."
Camping, who made a special appearance before the press at the Oakland headquarters of the media empire Monday evening, apologized for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have." Through chatting with a friend over what he acknowledged was a very difficult weekend, the light dawned on him that instead of the biblical Rapture in which the faithful would be swept up to the heavens, May 21 had instead been a "spiritual" Judgment Day, which places the entire world under Christ's judgment, he said.
The globe will be completely destroyed in five months, he said, when the apocalypse comes. But because God's judgment and salvation were completed on Saturday, there's no point in continuing to warn people about it, so his network will now just play Christian music and programs until the final end on Oct. 21.
"We've always said May 21 was the day, but we didn't understand altogether the spiritual meaning," he said. "The fact is there is only one kind of people who will ascend into heaven ... if God has saved them they're going to be caught up."
It's not the first time the 89-year-old retired civil engineer has been dismissed by the Christian mainstream and has been forced to explain when his prediction didn't come to pass. Camping also prophesized the Apocalypse would come in 1994, but said later that didn't happen then because of a mathematical error.
Monday, rather than give his normal daily broadcast, Camping took questions as a part of his show, "Open Forum," which transmits his biblical interpretations via the group's radio stations, TV channels, satellite broadcasts and website.
Camping's hands shook slightly as he pinned his microphone to his lapel, and as he clutched a worn Bible he spoke in a quivery monotone about some listeners' earthly concerns after giving away possessions in expectation of the Rapture.
Family Radio would never tell anyone what they should do with their belongings, and those who had fewer would cope, Camping said.
"We're not in the business of financial advice," he said. "We're in the business of telling people there's someone who you can maybe talk to, maybe pray to, and that's God."
But he also said that he wouldn't give away all his possessions ahead of Oct 21.
"I still have to live in a house, I still have to drive a car," he said. "What would be the value of that? If it is Judgment Day why would I give it away?"
Apocalyptic thinking has always been part of American religious life and popular culture. Teachings about the end of the world vary dramatically — even within faith traditions — about how they will occur.
Still, the overwhelming majority of Christians reject the idea that the exact date or time of Jesus' return can be predicted.
Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" novels about the end times, recently called Camping's prediction "not only bizarre but 100 percent wrong!" He cited the Bible verse Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows" except God.
"While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they `know' the day and the hour is flat out wrong," LaHaye wrote on his website, leftbehind.com.
Signs of disappointment also were evident online, where groups that had confidently predicted the Rapture — and, in some cases, had spent money to help spread the word through advertisements — took tentative steps to re-establish Internet presences in the face of widespread mockery.
The Pennsylvania-based group eBible Fellowship still has a website with images of May 21 billboards all over the world, but its Twitter feed has changed over from the increasingly confident predictions before the date to circumspect Bible verses that seem to speak to the confusion and hurt many members likely feel.
Camping offered no clues about Family Radio's finances Monday, saying he could not estimate how much had been spent on getting out his prediction nor how much money the nonprofit had taken in as a result. In 2009, the nonprofit reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks or other publicly traded securities.
Josh Ocasion, who works the teleprompter during Camping's live broadcasts in the group's threadbare studio sandwiched between an auto shop and a palm reader's business, said he enjoyed the production work but he had never fully believed the May 21 prophecy would come true.
"I thought he would show some more human decency in admitting he made a mistake," he said. "We didn't really see that."
Source: CBS
Thursday, May 12, 2011
One in three Africans is now middle class, report finds
Findings challenge view of continent as a place of famine and poverty
One in three Africans is middle class, a rising group of consumers to rival those of China and India, researchers have found (pdf).
Record numbers of people in Africa own houses and cars, use mobile phones and the internet and send their children to private schools and foreign universities, according to the African Development Bank.
Mthuli Ncube, the bank's chief economist, said the findings should challenge long-held perceptions of Africa as a continent of famine, poverty and hopelessness.
"Hey you know what, the world please wake up, this is a phenomenon in Africa that we've not spent a lot of time thinking about," Ncube said. "There is a middle class that is driven by specific factors such as education and we should change our view and work with this group to create a new Africa and make sure Africa realises its full potential."
Ncube said the study used an absolute definition of middle class, meaning people who spend between $2 and $20 a day, which he believed was appropriate given the cost of living for Africa's nearly 1 billion people.
The study found that, by last year, Africa's middle class had risen to about 34% of the continent's population, or about 313m people – up from around 111m (26%) in 1980 and 196m (27%) in 2000.
The growth rate of the middle class over the past 30 years was about 3.1%, slightly faster than that of the total population. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt had proportionately the biggest middle classes in Africa, while Liberia, Burundi and Rwanda had the smallest.
The Africa middle classes are more likely to have salaried jobs or own small businesses. They tend not to rely entirely on public health services, seeking more expensive medical care. The middle classes tend to have fewer children and spend more on their nutrition and schooling.
Sales of fridges, TVs and mobile phones have surged in virtually every African country in recent years, the report said. Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has gone up by 81% in the past five years.
"They own houses and they account for the bulk of housing ownership," Ncube said. "They own cars – people are driving cars in Lagos, in Kampala, in Harare, in Ouagadougou – it's the same middle class. You can even see it in the consumption of petrol. The bulk of them are consuming ICT services and mobile telephony, although the poor are also consumers of mobile telephone services.. They would also send their children to school, preferably private schools, but also schools outside the continent. The same class is sending their children to universities outside their home country, in South Africa, in Australia, in Canada, naturally Europe – France is a bigger absorber from the French-speaking countries – and the US."
The middle class was responsible for at least half of Africa's GDP of $1.6tn, he added. The trend reflected years of sustained economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa projected at 5.5% this year.
"This has implications," Ncube said. "How should the rest of the world engage with Africa, given this middle class? I think it means that those who want to invest should take the opportunity and look for partners within Africa to invest jointly with."
The focus of aid and development assistance would also have to change in the next 10 to 15 years, he argued. "It will have to concentrate less on the bottom of the pyramid and move to the middle, which means it has to be supportive of private sector initiatives, which then are the way middle class people conduct their lives."
Africa has a relatively young population and has seen millions migrate from rural areas to cities, where shopping malls with designer labels and smart coffee shops are springing up across the continent. Ncube acknowledged that a widening, internet-literate middle class could pose a threat to autocratic leaders, as seen in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The middle class is a source of democracy in Africa in a sense that they are custodians of democracy. They are the people who are educated, they know how to vote, they know what they want, they've got interests to protect. Supporting this class in a way also helps institution building in Africa.
But the research found that poverty remains deeply entrenched, with 61% of Africa's population living on less than $2 a day. An estimated 21% earn only enough to spend $2 to $4 a day, leaving about 180 million people vulnerable to economic shocks that could knock them out of the new middle class.
At the top of the pyramid, an elite of about 100,000 Africans had a collective net worth of 60% of the continent's gross domestic product in 2008, the report said.
Source: The Guardian
One in three Africans is middle class, a rising group of consumers to rival those of China and India, researchers have found (pdf).
Record numbers of people in Africa own houses and cars, use mobile phones and the internet and send their children to private schools and foreign universities, according to the African Development Bank.
Mthuli Ncube, the bank's chief economist, said the findings should challenge long-held perceptions of Africa as a continent of famine, poverty and hopelessness.
"Hey you know what, the world please wake up, this is a phenomenon in Africa that we've not spent a lot of time thinking about," Ncube said. "There is a middle class that is driven by specific factors such as education and we should change our view and work with this group to create a new Africa and make sure Africa realises its full potential."
Ncube said the study used an absolute definition of middle class, meaning people who spend between $2 and $20 a day, which he believed was appropriate given the cost of living for Africa's nearly 1 billion people.
The study found that, by last year, Africa's middle class had risen to about 34% of the continent's population, or about 313m people – up from around 111m (26%) in 1980 and 196m (27%) in 2000.
The growth rate of the middle class over the past 30 years was about 3.1%, slightly faster than that of the total population. Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt had proportionately the biggest middle classes in Africa, while Liberia, Burundi and Rwanda had the smallest.
The Africa middle classes are more likely to have salaried jobs or own small businesses. They tend not to rely entirely on public health services, seeking more expensive medical care. The middle classes tend to have fewer children and spend more on their nutrition and schooling.
Sales of fridges, TVs and mobile phones have surged in virtually every African country in recent years, the report said. Possession of cars and motorcycles in Ghana, for example, has gone up by 81% in the past five years.
"They own houses and they account for the bulk of housing ownership," Ncube said. "They own cars – people are driving cars in Lagos, in Kampala, in Harare, in Ouagadougou – it's the same middle class. You can even see it in the consumption of petrol. The bulk of them are consuming ICT services and mobile telephony, although the poor are also consumers of mobile telephone services.. They would also send their children to school, preferably private schools, but also schools outside the continent. The same class is sending their children to universities outside their home country, in South Africa, in Australia, in Canada, naturally Europe – France is a bigger absorber from the French-speaking countries – and the US."
The middle class was responsible for at least half of Africa's GDP of $1.6tn, he added. The trend reflected years of sustained economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa projected at 5.5% this year.
"This has implications," Ncube said. "How should the rest of the world engage with Africa, given this middle class? I think it means that those who want to invest should take the opportunity and look for partners within Africa to invest jointly with."
The focus of aid and development assistance would also have to change in the next 10 to 15 years, he argued. "It will have to concentrate less on the bottom of the pyramid and move to the middle, which means it has to be supportive of private sector initiatives, which then are the way middle class people conduct their lives."
Africa has a relatively young population and has seen millions migrate from rural areas to cities, where shopping malls with designer labels and smart coffee shops are springing up across the continent. Ncube acknowledged that a widening, internet-literate middle class could pose a threat to autocratic leaders, as seen in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The middle class is a source of democracy in Africa in a sense that they are custodians of democracy. They are the people who are educated, they know how to vote, they know what they want, they've got interests to protect. Supporting this class in a way also helps institution building in Africa.
But the research found that poverty remains deeply entrenched, with 61% of Africa's population living on less than $2 a day. An estimated 21% earn only enough to spend $2 to $4 a day, leaving about 180 million people vulnerable to economic shocks that could knock them out of the new middle class.
At the top of the pyramid, an elite of about 100,000 Africans had a collective net worth of 60% of the continent's gross domestic product in 2008, the report said.
Source: The Guardian
Monday, April 18, 2011
Polio: The plight of 40 year old who has lived in confinement as an outcast
KAKAMEGA COUNTY: FOR the last 30 years Reuben Wawire has never enjoyed sunrays.
His crime?
He has been incapacitated by a paralysis he suffered in 1980 that has rendered him immobile.
Under the guise of culture, his family members shunned him and locked him in a tiny dungeon like room in an abandoned house away from the rest.
Born in 1974, a healthy baby boy in Makhukhuni village of Matete district, Wawire suffered from polio that left him in the current state.
Efforts by family members to have him fully recover failed and was taken back home and confined for all this period.
A look at Wawire would easily force rivulets of tears roll down his cheeks. At 37 he looks a 2 or 3 year old suffering from debilitating effects of malnutrition.
.JPG)
His abode sends a chill along the spine. Resembling a chicken house and unclean, nobody would imagine that a human being and not an animal has been able to survive in such environment for all this period.
A Good Samaritan and church official Beatrice Nafula who has been occasionally taking care of Wawire revealed that he has been confined in an abandoned house formerly inhabited by the late grandmother.
“As church members we have to visit him, change his clothing and carry him out to enjoy a little sun light”, she said adding that if that is not done he will remain indoors.
.jpg)
Ms. Nafula trys to cover Wawire with a mosquito net, under the rack where it has been his home .
She added that Wawire is fed by well-wishers who in turn donate food and other needs.
Efforts to convince other members of the family to take him in have failed adding that they have branded a bad omen to their community.
“Only the late grandmother Sarah Siekunja used to take care but since she passed on last year his condition was deteriorating for the worse,” Nafula observed pointing out that it was now important for the government to step in and bail him out.
She said it was important for the community to be sensitized on the rights of the physically handicapped so that they are not discriminated.
Source: WestFM
Friday, April 15, 2011
PNU Vs ODM - Prof. Kagwanja Vs. Miguna Migua
The two advisors to the two principals in Kenya, namely Kibaki and ODM, debate on Ocampo 6 and the ICC process.
Watch for yourself and decide who the winner is.
Watch for yourself and decide who the winner is.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Miracle Cure - Rush to Loliondo by bus and aircraft
Weeks after the Loliondo “miracle cure” burst into the limelight, Kenyans are trooping to his clinic in earnest, using both land and air.
Kenyan air charter firms are reaping from the increasing demand on the Loliondo route where Rev Ambilikile Mwasapile is dispensing his cure.
Airlines are flying patients to Loliondo from various cities and towns in East Africa. While small aircraft are landing at the Waso Airstrip near Loliondo, helicopters are flying directly to the clinic in Samunge Village.
Most planes fly from Arusha, Mwanza, Kilimanjaro and Julius Nyerere airports; others are from neighbouring countries.
Kenyans who cannot afford air travel opt for the Loliondo Hospital Express, a matatu service being offered daily from Ronald Ngala bus terminus in Nairobi.
The bus leaves at 9am daily charging Sh6,000 for a two-way ticket. According to one of the matatu operators on the new route “the more passengers there are, the more matatus we will allocate to the route in any given day”.
Mr Forget Ngowi, 48, travelled to Loliondo at the weekend to sample the drink he believes has mystical healing powers.
He was accompanied by his 36- year-old wife Rehema in search of the wonder drink that has awed East Africans.
“I stood in the three kilometres queue to have my drink,” he told the Nation yesterday after arriving from Loliondo.
Mr Ngowi says he went to Loliondo to partake of the drink as a preventive measure contrary to popular belief that sick people are the only persons travelling to Tanzania. Mr Ngowi plans to take his two daughters to Loliondo when they during the current April school holidays.
Ten aeroplanes
“At least ten planes landed while I was on the queue,” said Mr Ngowi . He also met some Kenyan friends in Loliondo.
However, he says, the exhaustion that comes with queuing is almost unbearable for the ill. He was one of the passengers who boarded the matatu from the Ronald Ngala terminus last Sunday at 11am and arrived in Loliondo at 2pm.
“Unfortunately, Mzee only serves the drink during daytime so we had to wait until morning,” he pointed out.
With the scorching sun sky-high, Mr Ngowi and his wife finally received a serving of the drink at 3pm at a cost of TSh500 (about Sh25) each.
His journey proved painstaking after the matatu they had hired developed mechanical problems, leaving them stranded in Tanzania. “We called the matatu welfare office in Nairobi and were instructed to wait for a spare tyre to arrive with the next matatu.
The driver abandoned them forcing them to make alternative arrangements of their return. “My wife squeezed in one of the other vehicles and paid Sh3,000 to Nairobi.” Mr Ngowi arrived yesterday after he secured a lift from a driver until Kiserian where he boarded another matatu to Nairobi.
Passengers can also take a matatu to Namanga then take another to Loliondo for Sh3,500.
Public Health and Sanitation minister Beth Mugo has warned that the unproven cure could undermine the gains so far made in treating infectious diseases.
The main ingredient of the Loliondo cure was last month identified by Tanzanian authorities as a common plant in the region known as Carissa spinarum. It is also known as Carissa edulis according to the East African Harbarium of the National Museums of Kenya.
It is estimated that those opting for air travel could be spending upwards of Sh40,000.
“The demand on the Loliondo route is quite high,” said Mr Paul Denge, a pilot based in Nairobi.
Denge, who flies Heliservices helicopters, said that on Saturday one of their helicopters was operating from Arusha Airport.
Heliservices is a subsidiary of ALS Limited, a Kenya registered aviation firm, which operates a fleet of small aircraft.
“We have been there countless times and demand is growing,” he said. Several aviation firms in Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda have been airlifting people to Loliondo, he said.
“Some of the sick taken there are sponsored by family friends or private businesses. In other cases, people raise money to charter the aircraft,” he said. Some patients are flown there paralysed or in a critical condition, sometimes requiring them to be accompanied by doctors or nurses.
The low cost of the herbal concoction has been cited as the reason for the growing demand for the medicine despite the fact there is so far no scientific evidence on its efficacy.
Source: Daily Nation
Friday, April 8, 2011
Uhuru, Muthaura, and Ali: Initial ICC appearance, 8 April 2011
Situation: Republic of Kenya
Case: The Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali
Today, 8 April 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) set the date of the beginning of the confirmation of charges hearing in the case of The Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali for 21 September 2011.
This date was announced at the initial appearance of Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali before the ICC. During this hearing, in the presence of the Prosecutor and the suspects, assisted by their Defence teams, Pre-Trial Chamber II verified the identity of the suspects and ensured that they were clearly informed of the crimes which they are alleged to have committed and of their rights under the Rome Statute of the ICC.
A confirmation of charges hearing is held to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that each suspect committed each of the crimes charged. If the charges are confirmed, the Pre-Trial Chamber commits the person for trial before a Trial Chamber, which will conduct the subsequent phase of the proceedings: the trial.
During the hearing, the Presiding Judge also stressed that: “It came to the knowledge of the Chamber through following some articles in the Kenyan newspapers that there are movements towards retriggering the violence in Kenya, by way of delivering dangerous speeches. I would like to remind the suspects - and note that I am not referring to anyone in particular. This is a general point to be made to all the suspects - such action could be perceived as a breach of one of the conditions clearly set out in the summonses to appear namely, to continue committing crimes within the jurisdiction of this Court. Accordingly, this might prompt the Chamber to replace the summonses to appear with warrants of arrest. However, the Judges would not prefer to resort to such a drastic measure and would rather (and we assume the suspects endorse this view) continue carrying out the proceedings smoothly and respecting the liberty of the three suspects”
Case: The Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali
Today, 8 April 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) set the date of the beginning of the confirmation of charges hearing in the case of The Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali for 21 September 2011.
This date was announced at the initial appearance of Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and Mohammed Hussein Ali before the ICC. During this hearing, in the presence of the Prosecutor and the suspects, assisted by their Defence teams, Pre-Trial Chamber II verified the identity of the suspects and ensured that they were clearly informed of the crimes which they are alleged to have committed and of their rights under the Rome Statute of the ICC.
A confirmation of charges hearing is held to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that each suspect committed each of the crimes charged. If the charges are confirmed, the Pre-Trial Chamber commits the person for trial before a Trial Chamber, which will conduct the subsequent phase of the proceedings: the trial.
During the hearing, the Presiding Judge also stressed that: “It came to the knowledge of the Chamber through following some articles in the Kenyan newspapers that there are movements towards retriggering the violence in Kenya, by way of delivering dangerous speeches. I would like to remind the suspects - and note that I am not referring to anyone in particular. This is a general point to be made to all the suspects - such action could be perceived as a breach of one of the conditions clearly set out in the summonses to appear namely, to continue committing crimes within the jurisdiction of this Court. Accordingly, this might prompt the Chamber to replace the summonses to appear with warrants of arrest. However, the Judges would not prefer to resort to such a drastic measure and would rather (and we assume the suspects endorse this view) continue carrying out the proceedings smoothly and respecting the liberty of the three suspects”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)