Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru has denied paying off prosecution witnesses at Deputy President William Ruto’s war crimes trial.
The ICC has accused Gicheru of being a crucial figure in a plot to sabotage Ruto’s trial by tampering with witnesses.
After a disputed 2007 election in which 1,200 people died, Ruto and his co-accused, broadcaster Joshua Sang, were both charged with fomenting ethnic conflict.
In 2016, ICC judges determined that the two had no case to answer, however they did leave the door open to further charges in the future, citing political intervention and intimidation against witnesses as obstacles.
Gicheru, who was in court on Tuesday, “organized and directed a plot to identify, locate, and corruptly influence actual and potential prosecution witnesses” using a combination of intimidation and bribery, according to ICC prosecutor James Steward.
Prosecutors stated his tactics caused at least four prosecution witnesses to retract and recant their testimony.
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