Lawyer Paul Gicheru, whose case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) began on Friday, was the manager and coordinator of an alleged well-oiled scheme whose job was to influence witnesses for them to recant or drop their evidence against Deputy President William Ruto.
This is according to submissions made by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who also listed Philip Kipkoech Bett and journalist Walter Barasa, who are wanted by the international court as alleged members of the highly coordinated gang.
A fourth person whose name was not given by the prosecutor in her submissions made in 2015 also played a role, but a request for a warrant of arrest for the individual was dropped the last minute.
Mr Barasa and Mr Bett are still at large but are believed to be staying on the outskirts of Eldoret hoping that the Kenyan government does not suddenly decide to cooperate with the ICC and extradite them. Kenya has a bad record when it comes to extraditing its citizens wanted for international crimes.
The alleged bribery attempts began in April 2013 coinciding with the date DP Ruto and journalist Joshua Arap Sang’s cases were supposed to begin at the ICC. The two cases were postponed on two occasions but finally kicked off in September of that year.
Disregarded their testimony
By the time the case eventually began, Ruto was already the Deputy President having been elected in August on a joint ticket with President Uhuru Kenyatta. Five of the witnesses alleged to have been influenced testified in the case but judges disregarded their testimony on the account that they were not credible.
A sixth witness number 397 not only refused to testify but also switched off his phone making himself unavailable to prosecutors. Eventually, witnesses number 495, 516, 536, 613 and 800 were compelled to appear before the court after prosecution said that they had recanted their statements or ceased contact.
The Kenyan government was then asked to avail the witnesses to the court on April 14, 2014. In a statement, the ICC said that the witnesses “are no longer co-operating or have informed the prosecution that they are no longer willing to testify".
Nairobi refused to avail the witnesses and consequently Ruto and Sang’s case died. Their lawyers have, however, consistently denied that their clients were involved in any form of witness interference.
It is worth noting that some of the conditions that Ruto and Sang were given to be allowed to attend the court while enjoying their freedom was that they were not to contact witnesses in the case at all.
While it only through Mr Gicheru’s trial that the world would know on whose command the gang was acting, Ms Bensouda noted that the “scheme was run in an organised manner and with a clear distribution of tasks”.
The nerve centre of the scheme’s operations was Mr Gicheru’s office in Eldoret Town. It is here that final agreements with witnesses were made and money changed hands. It is still not known where the millions of shillings that was being handed to which witnesses came from.
“In particular, Paul Gicheru has been a manager and coordinator of the scheme, meaning that he has finalised agreements with corrupted witnesses, organised the formalisation of their withdrawal and handled the payment,” said Ms Bensouda.
“The role of Philip Kipkoech Bett has been to contact the witnesses, at least some of whom they knew previously, and to make initial proposals before bringing them to the managers, particularly Paul Gicheru,” said the prosecutor.
Mr Bett, who is well-connected in Eldoret, is not a lawyer but was working for Mr Gicheru’s law firm at that time. Apart from working at the law firm, he ran errands for the lawyer who was eventually appointed the chairman Export Processing Zone (EPZ).
In the bribery scheme, Mr Bett’s role as alleged by the prosecutor was to identify witnesses and take them to Mr Gicheru. A similar role was played by journalist Barasa, who is accused of directly attempting to influence witness number P0366, a woman who survived the razing down of a church in Kiambaa.
Mr Barasa allegedly approached the witness and his husband on the instructions of Mr Gicheru, who did not want the witness to identify him. For recanting her evidence, witness number P0536 was to receive Sh1.4 million.
2007 post-election violence
This attempt to bribe her is said to have taken place between May 20, 2013 and July 25, 2013 in Kampala, Uganda. When the witness declined, Barasa attempted to influence another witness number P-0256 asking her to help him meet witness number P-0536 for the purpose of receiving the money offered to her.
All these attempts failed and witness P-0536 became the first witness to testify in the trial of Dr Ruto and Sang when it kicked off after months of postponements on September 17, 2013. As a crime base witness, witness P-0536 painted the horror of the 2007 post-election violence by recounting what she saw during the burning of the Kiambaa church.
Apart from insisting on giving her evidence, witness P-0536 told prosecutors that she had been approached many times to recant her evidence but wanted to soldier on. On the day she gave her testimony, bloggers attempted to reveal her face which could only be seen by those in the court since she was cross-examined in camera.For Mr Barasa and Mr Bett, their only hope is that the Kenyan government does not suddenly decide to extradite him to The Hague.
