Ruto claims activist hand in Hague case

Some NGOs were behind a plot to have Jubilee leaders jailed by the ICC for political reasons, the defence team of Deputy President William Ruto claimed Wednesday.
Mr Ruto’s lead lawyer Karim Khan played a video clip of former NGO council boss Ken Wafula addressing a Saba Saba Cord rally at Uhuru Park before the case against President Kenyatta was dropped and saying that the cases were strong and the Jubilee leaders would be jailed.

Mr Wafula is heard introducing himself as the man “President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are crying about has taken them to The Hague”.

Asked by presiding judge Chile Eboe-Osuji what relevance Mr Wafula’s comments had to the case, Mr Khan said he was part of the individuals who were well known to the prosecution, and had a bearing on the ongoing case.

AROUSING A CROWD

“The manner he is talking about the ICC cases as a means of rousing a crowd and saying people are going to jail points to some of the undercurrents in this case,” he said.

The Ruto defence, during the cross-examination of witness P-0658, stressed that Mr Wafula spoke at a Cord rally.

The court was told “there are some people in Kenya who are keen to achieve what they could not achieve through the ballot box.”

Mr Khan claimed earlier that Mr Wafula was behind a scam to take 40 girls away from their parents in Marakwet to get funding from an anti-FGM group.

Witness P-0658 said he was not aware of the scam, prompting Mr Khan to produce a story carried by the Standard on January 30, 2004, headlined ‘Controversy erupts over girls who fled forced circumcision. The story alleged that Mr Wafula deliberately took the girls away from their homes to attract donor funding.