News / Africa
ICC Official Meets Victims of '08 Kenya Violence
October 26, 2012
NAIROBI —
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wrapped up her
five-day trip to Kenya Friday after visiting with victims of Kenya’s
2008 post-election violence.
Bensouda began her trip with a visit to Kiambaa church in Eldoret,
where on New Year’s Day in 2008 some 30 people were burned alive by
arsonists in one of the most gruesome incidents to follow the country's
disputed presidential election.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,100 people were killed and more than 600,000 were displaced by the violence.
Her trip is aimed at clarifying The Hague mandate and gleaning
additional information to prosecute four high-profile Kenyans accused of
crimes related to the violence, two of whom are presidential candidates
— Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and member of parliament William
Ruto.
During meetings in Eldoret, many victims complained to Bensouda that
the former prosecutor, Luis-Moreno Ocampo, never visited them and that
their accounts were never heard.
While Bensouda explained the ICC's role, she also said that international court can only do so much.
“We cannot address all of the crimes, so what we have been trying to do
is to get something that will represent the criminality of all the
crimes that took place,” she said.
Throughout the week, Bensouda made it clear in various meetings with
Nairobi officials that the ICC would not be influenced by politics and
that the trial will go on even if one of those indicted were to become
president.
"That is why the responsibility still remains with the government of
Kenya to try to address the crimes committed by others who are not the
ICC indictees," she said, calling on the nation's court system to press
charges of its own against others accused in the violence.
The ICC trial at The Hague is slated to begin in April next year, just a month after Kenya’s presidential election.
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