AG Githu Muigai's strong message to ICC

juma chrispinus

February 27, 2018 1:29 PM

Is Kenya finally pulling out of ICC?

Outgoing Attorney General Prof Githu Muigai has told the Hague based International Criminal Court ICC to engage more with the African nation members states to foster good relations, dismissing claims that Kenya was set to quit.

Speaking on Tuesday when he opened an international justice symposium, Justice for International and Transnational Organised Crimes, a forum organised by Strathmore University, the Wayamo Foundation, and the Africa Group for Justice and Accountability, Prof Githu has said that the cooperation from the court has been missing.

He noted that the lack of cooperation has prompted several countries in Africa, including Kenya, to contemplate exit from the court.

“Kenya sees the ICC as an institution that ought to be having a constructive engagement with Africa. We ought to have a conversation of equals where issues are resolved with no acrimony,” Prof Muigai said at Strathmore University in Nairobi.

He added: “It is important that Kenya never withdrew from ICC, and has no plans at the moment to withdraw.”

Cases dismissed

The ICC in 2016, said that Kenya failed to cooperate with its prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and later President Uhuru Kenyatta would announce that after him and his deputy William Ruto and five others, no other Kenyan would be taken to that court.

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The nearly six Kenyans had their charges dropped, or withdrawn in different times since they were indicted in 2010.

“We are now in a world where a crime is planned in Europe, financed in the USA, perpetrators recruited in Asia, trained in Africa, for a crime to be committed in East Africa,” Prof Muigai noted.

This is the first time Prof Muigai has made a public appearance, few weeks after his resignation as the Attorney General. President Uhuru Kenyatta replaced his position with the former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Paul Kihara Kariuki.

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