Ocampo vindicated me: Ruto

Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday confidence that the cases facing him and President Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court (ICC) will collapse.

Mr Ruto was reacting to remarks by former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo that some unidentified foreign envoys wanted him to do something to keep the Jubilee leaders from running for office.

The Deputy President said his conscience was clear that he never planned the 2007/8 post-election violence.

“The truth and lies are now unfolding and, with continued prayers from Kenyans, we will soon be set free,” he said.

Mr Ruto was speaking at Ndanai primary school in Sotik, Bomet County, where he donated Sh1.5 million that he had promised the area residents during campaigns for the last General Election towards the construction of a school, Samoei primary school, named after him.

The Deputy President’s defence lawyer, Mr Karim Khan, also reacted to Mr Moreno Ocampo’s remarks, saying the former prosecutor has confirmed his long-held view of external interference.

Mr Khan, who is in Kenya, added that “his (Mr Moreno Ocampo’s) acceptance that certain diplomats put pressure on him corroborates what we have always said in court that diplomats like (former US ambassador Michael) Ranneberger used the ICC to subvert the rights of Kenyans to choose their own leaders democratically.”

CONFIRMED THE TRUTH

The Director of Media and External Relations at State House, Mr Munyori Buku, said Mr Moreno Ocampo had confirmed “what has always been the truth".

“This has been an international conspiracy by the West and civil society which is in fact an evil society. In the fullness of time the conspiracy will be evident.

It is a tragedy that an international process of justice can be what Ocampo says,” he said.   

In an interview with Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) on January 22, Mr Ocampo narrated how some unnamed diplomats wanted him to prevent then Deputy Prime Minister Kenyatta and Mr Ruto from running for the 2013 elections.

“There were some diplomats asking me to do something more to prevent Kenyatta or Ruto from running in the elections. And I said ‘it’s not my job’. Judges in Kenya should do that. And if they authorise them to run, people will vote. And if people vote for them, we have nothing to say,” Mr Moreno Ocampo said, while responding to questions crowd-sourced from followers of the Facebook page The Hague Trials Kenya (THTK), reproduced by RNW.

He also said he had evidence against Francis Muthaura, but it was not enough to go to trial. “He was one of the most powerful persons in Kenya those days.

So it was difficult to collect evidence against him. When we tried to interview people, the government asked us for a formal process. We were going nowhere.”

The Ruto defence has made claims in court that the American aid agency, USAid, funded witness procurement and protection programmes through a group of non-governmental organisations among them Kalenjin Youth Alliance, Good Samaritan International and Anti-Torture Campaign Network. The US Embassy in Nairobi has denied the claims.