Ocampo Six set to receive ICC summonses

Attorney General Amos Wako has instructed Police Commissioner Matthew Iteere to serve the Ocampo Six with summonses to appear from the International Criminal Court March 15, 2011. FILE

Attorney General Amos Wako has instructed Police Commissioner Matthew Iteere to serve the Ocampo Six with summonses to appear from the International Criminal Court.

A highly placed source at the AG’s chambers said Mr Wako held a meeting with Mr Iteere in his offices in the morning over the summonses and later wrote a letter asking the police boss to serve them with the documents.

On Wednesday, the AG is expects the police boss to submit to him the certificates to confirm that deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta,  Eldoret North MP William Ruto and Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey have been served.

“The Attorney General will tomorrow (Wednesday) be expecting to receive certificates from the Police Commissioner showing that the summonses were served,” said a source.

Others to be served are Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura, former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali and radio presenter Joshua arap Sang.

The source said the AG received the summonses on Monday from the ICC Registrar Silvana Arbia through the country’s envoy at The Hague.

The summonses were issued by the Pre-Trial Chamber II last Tuesday when the judges ruled that the evidence submitted showed that there were reasonable grounds to implicate the six suspects over the post election violence.

They are now required to go to The Hague for the initial appearance on April 7 when the charges will be read to them. The government has said that they will contest the admissibility of the cases and the mandate of the ICC to handle them.

Kenya’s hopes of securing the deferral of cases facing the Ocampo Six faded on the eve of an informal meeting with the UN Security Council after Germany said it will oppose the move.

The Director General in charge of African Affairs at the Germany Foreign Office, Walter Lindner who conveyed Berlin’s stand on the matter asked Kenya to co-operate with the ICC instead of resorting to political side-shows.

Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi is leading the Kenyan delegation to Germany on a study tour on devolved government.

“If you ask me, it is already too late. We have an informal meeting on Kenya at the Security Council at the UN on March 16, 2011 and that is it,” said Mr Lindtner.

The German government, he said, sees no international threat to peace in the Kenyan case.

“We are however aware that some of the accused are being allowed to stir up ethnic support for possible conflict as a defence mechanism. We are watching Kenya carefully”, he warned.