International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda has confirmed the arrest of Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru and transfer to the custody of the International Criminal Court.
Bensouda lauded Gicheru for voluntarily surrendering to the ICC, adding that the move would settle the accusations made against him.
She added that Gicheru will face charges of interfering with witnesses through bribes and inducements.
“On the 10th of March 2015, the judges issued a warrant of arrest for Mr Gicheru. In their decision, they found that the evidence presented by my Office established reasonable grounds to believe that Messrs Gicheru and Philip Kipkoech Bett were involved in an organized and systematic criminal scheme, aimed at approaching and corrupting six Prosecution witnesses, through bribes and other inducements, in exchange for withdrawing as witnesses and/or recanting their prior statements to the Prosecution.”
Bensouda assured Kenyans that judicial proceedings will follow, as the ICC pushes the Kenyan government to ensure the surrender of two other ICC lawyers.
“I call on the Kenyan authorities to fulfil their obligations under the Rome Statute to ensure the surrender of the remaining two suspects to the custody of the Court, so that their guilt or innocence on the charges against them may be determined in a court of law.”
She thanked the Kingdom of Netherlands for a successful court transfer.
“I am grateful for the cooperation of all those who contributed to this successful transfer to the Court, in particular, the Kingdom of The Netherlands and colleagues from the Registry of the Court.”
