International criminal court abandons case against William Ruto

Kenya’s deputy president had faced charges over violence
following 2007 election that saw 1,300 people killed

Owen Bowcott Legal affairs correspondent
Tuesday 5 April 2016 19.28 BST

The International criminal court has abandoned its prosecution of Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, who had been accused of orchestrating the post-electoral violence in 2007 that killed more than 1,300 people.

The controversial proceedings were declared by the court’s presiding judge, Chile Eboe-Osuji, to be a mistrial due to a “troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling”.

The Hague-based tribunal also dropped identical charges of crimes against humanity – involving murder, persecution and forcible transfer of populations – that had been brought against the Kenyan broadcaster Joshua Sang.

The rulings reflect the frustration of senior lawyers in obtaining reliable evidence against high-ranking officials accused of committing atrocities.

Eighteen months ago the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, was forced to drop charges against Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, over the same flare-up of political violence, citing problems with witnesses who had been harassed and intimidated. At the time she declared it was “a dark day for international criminal justice”

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