ICTJ in the News

December 3, 2008

Kenya: Post-poll violence suspects may escape justice

The Standard

Perpetrators of post-election violence may beat justice after all, international lawyers have warned.

The Director of Prosecutions for International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) Marieke Wierda, who has several tribunals across the world, said the prosecutor of the proposed tribunal would have an uphill task linking powerful individuals with the evidence adduced against them.

The concern was expressed as the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee, under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi, met yesterday and deliberated on the implementation of the Waki Report.

Marieke and Ms Cecile Aptel, a fellow at ICTJ, said Kenya required a watertight tribunal free from any sort of influence and with power to derive evidence from everywhere.

The two lawyers, who were addressing a workshop on a special tribunal for Kenya at a city hotel, took members of the civil society through different tribunals across Africa.

"There may have been inciters, there may have been people who were killed and those who killed them. There may have been financiers and organisers who have no blood on their hands...the prosecutor may find it extremely difficult linking them to the evidence adduced. Much needs to be done," Ms Marieke said.

Any prosecutor appointed to head the special tribunal will have to go beyond the Waki Report and put together water tight evidence to pin down the suspects according to the experts.

Raised concern

Marieke and Cecile raised concerns over the leaked statute for the special tribunal on poll violence, which they said did not give staff adequate protection.

"I am particularly concerned about the clause on the removal and replacement of judges. They need much more protection than the statute is providing," Ms Marieke said.

They warned that a number of cases, however genuine and strong they may look, could be thrown out on the basis of lack of evidence if the prosecution failed to assemble the necessary exhibits as mandated by the statute.

Concerns were also raised over the membership of the prosecutorial team, with a possible involvement of the police remaining questionable.

The experts took the participants through experiences in Ugandan, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bosnia and Senegal, countries that have undergone the formation of special tribunals.

And speaking after the committee meeting, Mudavadi said they were confident that the timetable for setting up the tribunal as spelt out by Waki would be met.

" Kenyans should not be worried that time is running out on the implementation of the Waki report. We are still on course" he said.

"Post-poll violence suspects may escape justice" originally appeared in The Standard.