ICC denies receiving application from Ruto
Mr Ruto, in his application, asks the judges to compel Mr Moreno-Ocampo to “conduct his own independent, fair, impartial investigations and to stop defending the reports of investigations done by others.” Photo/FILE
Mystery surrounds two applications seeking to stop the International Criminal Court from issuing summonses against six post-election violence suspects.
While lawyers pursuing the matter on behalf their clients at The Hague insisted that they had filed the applications, an official at the court’s Public Information and Documentation Section, Dr Fadi El Abdallah, an associate legal outreach officer at the ICC told the Saturday Nation that the submissions would have been uploaded on their website immediately.
“With regard to the mentioned request by the lawyers of Mr (William) Ruto, we are not aware of any public filing about this issue for the time being. Any public submission that might be filed is uploaded on our website with no delay,” Dr Abdallah said in an email.
But one of Mr Ruto’s lawyers insisted that they had filed their case on Wednesday at the court’s registry.
“On Wednesday, we filed our application at the registry of the ICC as per section 103 of the Rules of Procedures and Evidence,” lawyer Kindiki Kithure said on phone.
Lawyers representing nine security chiefs and administrators were not reachable but had already said a week ago that they had sent their application on e-mail.
Both applications want prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo stopped from naming his six suspects on Wednesday until their submissions are heard and determined by the ICC judges.
The prosecutor announced this week that he will go before the judges on Wednesday when the names of the six suspects will be made public.
Mr Ruto, in his application, asks the judges to compel Mr Moreno-Ocampo to “conduct his own independent, fair, impartial investigations and to stop defending the reports of investigations done by others.”
He argues that the prosecutor cannot claim to have conducted his own investigations, considering that the agreement between the ICC and the Kenya Government granting the ICC investigators status and authorising them to operate in Kenya was signed in September 2010.
