Ruto, Uhuru warned on ICC

The Orange Democratic Movement wants Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto to stop politicising the ICC process.

Sports minister Ababu Namwamba, who led the ODM Reloaded brigade to Kericho County to drum up support for Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s presidential campaign, said politics would not help the two — Mr Uhuru and Mr Ruto — to escape the criminal charges facing them at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“I would like to remind Ruto and Uhuru that using the ICC issue to play politics will not serve them any good. The solution to their problems is following the proper judicial processes,” said Mr Namwamba.

In Kericho town, where the caravan made a stopover, the minister defended the PM against allegations by some Kalenjin leaders that he was behind the push to have suspected masterminds of the post-election violence undergo trial at the international court.

Mr Namwamba narrated how Mr Odinga shed tears in Parliament as he pleaded with legislators to support a motion to create a local tribunal to try Post-Election Violence (PEV) suspects instead of them facing trial at The Hague-based court.

“We demand that the ICC suspects stop insisting that Raila took them to the ICC as this statement is not true. Raila is not an ICC prosecutor,” he stated.

He threatened to release video footage of the heated debate that ensued in the august House when the ICC issue came up and which would prove to residents of Rift Valley that Mr Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki passionately opposed any plans to allow the ICC to take over the cases even before they knew who the suspects were.

In the end, the two were roundly defeated and the list of suspects forwarded to the then ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo after Mr Ruto rallied all his allies to vote for The Hague option instead.

“Mr Ruto held a meeting with his allies at the International Bible School where he told them that Rift Valley’s stand was that the cases be referred to The Hague,” said Mr Namwamba.

Other members of the Reloaded Team at the meeting included MPs Manson Nyamweya, Millie Odhiambo and Augustino Neto.