ICC drops charges against Kenya’s Kenyatta

ICC drops charges against Kenya’s Kenyatta
By Mike Corder, Associated Press, 05 Dec 2014

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS — Accusing Kenya of blocking her investigation, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court on Friday dropped the charges against Kenya’s president – including ones for murder and rape.
The decision by Fatou Bensouda to scrap her prosecution of President Uhuru Kenyatta for his alleged involvement in his country’s 2007 postelection violence highlights a key challenge for the 12-year-old court – having to rely on governments led by the very suspects it indicts.
Kenyatta had been charged with murder, rape, persecution, deportation and other inhumane acts as an “indirect co-perpetrator” in the violence that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2007 and 2008. (...)
Rights groups lamented Friday’s decision.
“It’s clear that a long tradition of impunity in Kenya and pressure on witnesses have been serious obstacles to a fair process before the ICC,” said Liz Evenson of Human Rights Watch. “But the roadblocks in the Kenyatta trial make it all the more important for the ICC to figure out how it can move ahead with high-profile cases.”
One court watcher said prosecutors must also bear some responsibility for the case collapsing.
While agreeing that Kenya blocked the court, “the lack of evidence points more to a failure of the previous investigative strategy,” said Alison Smith, legal counsel for the rights group No Peace Without Justice. “The evidence is out there, the question is why the (prosecutor) did not have it.”

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