President Elect Uhuru kenyatta's lawyers want his ICC case dropped
Lawyers for Kenya's president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta are to argue Monday that the International Criminal Court should dismiss crimes against humanity charges against him over post-2007 election violence.
At a hearing scheduled for 1400 GMT at the
Hague-based court, a three-judge bench will notably hear defence lawyer
Steven Kay's request to scrap his client's July trial date and send the
case back to the ICC's pre-trial chambers.
The case is being closely watched in Kenya and
around the world after ICC prosecutors a week ago asked to drop all
charges against Kenyatta's co-accused, top civil servant Francis
Muthaura.
Kenyatta, 51, was proclaimed Kenyan president just
over a week ago following the first elections after the east African
country's deadly post-poll violence five years ago in which ICC
prosecutors say some 1,100 people were killed.
Prosecutors suspect Kenyatta of having paid the
Mungiki, a sect-like criminal gang notorious for beheading its victims,
to lead reprisal attacks and defend the Kikuyu community when violence
ripped through Kenya following disputed polls in late 2007.
Kenyatta has rejected the allegations.
His defence has argued that a statement by a
prosecution witness, so-called witness "OTP-4" who later recanted
testimony, lay at the heart of the case.
"The evidence they (the prosecution) are seeking
to rely on in the case against Uhuru Kenyatta is utterly flawed," Kay
said in a statement released by Kenyatta's party ahead of the hearing
A pre-trial judge's decision in January last year
to confirm the charges against Kenyatta, son of Kenya's founding father
Jomo Kenyatta, was based on the "crucial evidence" by OTP-4 who placed
the top politician at meetings with Mungiki members.
But witness OTP-4 has since been discredited with
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda dropping all charges against
Kenyatta's co-accused, former civil servant Muthaura on March 11 as a
direct result.