Talking
to the press Walter Barasa (pictured), the latest fugitive from the ICC looks very
relaxed and confident. In fact he does not look too worried about the
arrest warrant against him that has been issued from the Hague for an
extremely serious offense.
According to Bensouda, Barasa has attempted to bribe at least 3 witnesses, including witness 536.
Ms
Bensouda says Mr Barasa offered "to pay her and her husband a total of
one million four hundred thousand Kenyan Shillings (KES 1,400,000) in
order to influence her to withdraw as a Prosecution witness, committed
during the period 20 May to 25 July 2013 and at or near Kampala,
Uganda".
Those who
know Barasa have been amazed at the transformation of the man in recent
months. Barasa is a freelance journalist but is reported to have
suddenly been seen in designer suits. As Kenyans like to say; "alipata
kazi poa sana."
But
what should be of great concern to Kenyans just now is not the sudden
"good fortune" of Barasa but the storm brewing over the fact that he was
not handed over to the ICC when his arrest warrant was issued 2 months
ago. Instead the banana republic which is a signatory to the Rome
statute has chosen to play legal acrobatics as revealed when the warrant
was made public by the ICC yesterday.
The
consequences of this are very grave and will have far-reaching effects
on our politics and even security for many years to come. I discuss
these consequences in great detail in my latest raw notes published a
few minutes ago.Fascinatingly, every time the ICC fugitive speaks you hear the voice and arguments of the
Deputy president. Ruto has been stuck (like an old phonograph record) on
the point that the ICC coached witnesses on what to say. He has
repeated it so often that a vast majority of Kenyans believe that there
was some wrong doing. Legally there is absolutely nothing wrong with
prosecutors highlighting to witnesses the parts of their testimony that
is most relevant to the case (in this case crimes against humanity). It
happens all the time, everywhere in the world.
I cannot resist an
interesting aside here. Ruto is an extremely intelligent man and what
has been puzzling me for a long time has been his ICC legal strategy. He
is facing extremely serious charges that if found guilty would land him
in luxurious jail at the Hague for the rest of his life. You would
think that he would focus on building his defense with solid evidence to
rubbish what the prosecutors have on him . Instead he has been
vigorously playing to the gallery constantly requesting the ICC judges
for opportunities to address the court. And on landing back in the
country telling Kenyans he has already won the case based on what his
lawyer said at the ICC the week before.
===============================
Also in my raw notes today
* Latest startling revelations
on the Westgate tragedy.
================================
The judges have now caught on to
some of his tactics and have denied him his showbiz moments in court.
His lawyer has not done any better. He has been heavy on rhetoric and
side shows and his answer to the serious allegations is to criticize the
approach the prosecution took in investigating the case. The other day
whilst requesting for Ruto to be allowed to return to Kenya to help
deal with the Westgate crisis, the man spend considerable time telling
the court about Ruto's 80 year old mother who doesn't understand English
and how distressed she is over her son. Probably the kind of tactics
that would have had an outside chance of being justified if Ruto was
facing a jury made up of ordinary folk. Or if the court decision could
be tinkered by sympathy for Ruto. At the ICC with some of the very best
legal minds in the world, this behavior is nothing but baffling.
So what is Ruto really up to? You do not want to hear the answer (also in my latest raw notes).
Here is Barasa's statement in full;
STATEMENT BY WALTER BARASA
My full names are Walter Barasa. I am a
journalist. I joined the journalism profession in 1985 after finishing
my diploma course. I have worked as a journalist for 18 years most of it
with the Nation newspaper and then the People daily.
Between 1st and
5th December 2012 I was called by somebody who introduced himself to me
as an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigator. He introduced
himself as Paul Irani. He informed me that he had been given my name and
phone number by somebody who was known to me.
He further informed me
that he was an ICC investigator and wanted to meet him in Nairobi. He
told me to hire a taxi from Eldoret to Nairobi and that he would pay for
the taxi once I arrived in Nairobi because the matter he wanted us to
discuss was urgent. He paid Ksh 30,000 to the taxi owner upon arrival in
Nairobi.
We met at the Westgate Mall in Westlands. He was with
another investigator called Ule. I introduced myself. He told me that he
wanted me to help them in connection with a lady in Kiambaa and that
she was a witness in a case which was earlier conducted in Nakuru. He
told me I was a good man and that I should get the lady to confirm what
she had told him on phone because he could not travel to Eldoret which
he was told was hostile.
He bought a cellphone for me with an Airtel
line to take to the lady. I went and met the lady who confirmed that she
had talked with Paul Irani. I later confirmed to Irani that I had met
the lady. He requested me to get the lady a temporary passport to enable
her go to Uganda for interrogation and statement recording.
When the
lady came back she told me that she had been a worker at a certain
politicians home and that the investigators had told her to say that she
was a cook and that she seen planning meetings being held at the
politicians home and had cooked for youths and served them with food as
they planned to attack the Kiambaa church.
I asked her whether that
was actually true but she told me that it was not true because during
the time she was employed by the politician she was actually working as a
casual labourer planting tree seedlings and sometimes used to harvest
maize.
She also told me that she had left that employment five years
before but that she had been forced to say that she was cooking and
serving food during the period the violence occurred. I encouraged her
to confirm to whether she was ready to defend that position. I asked her
how as a Kikuyu she could be allowed to get into a planning meeting and
cook and serve food to people who were going to kill her relatives. She
told me that she had been told to say that so that the case would be
strong.
I warned her that she faced the risk of prosecution if it
turned out that she was lying. We ended our conversation and she told me
that Paul had sent her to tell me to get her a passport. The
investigators sent her a total of Ksh 45,500 and a sum of Ksh 6,000 for
facilitation making a total of Ksh 51,500 which the lady (536) withdrew
and gave me.
We got the passports and she and her family crossed over
to Uganda. We cut off communication for some time until I received a
call from the lady using a Ugandan number. She told me that her children
were not going to school and that life had become very difficult
contrary to what she was promised and her husband was very bitter and
wanted them to come back to the country.
She told me she did not want
to continue with the case and wanted to come back. I later met Paul
Irani at Topelli restaurant near Nairobi hospital and informed him about
the ladies complaints and warned him that the lady had threatened to
abandon the cause. He promised to address the issue. The lady stopped
calling me for some time until a time when she called me on a Burundian
number. That is when I learnt that she had been moved to Burundi. She
was still complaining of poor treatment. She insisted that since I was
the one she knew I should assist her get out of Burundi because she did
not have money to get her back in the country.
Communication between
us went off again and then a week later she called me from a phone whose
code was +423 which is the code for DR Congo with the same complaint.
She repeated the same thing that she was fed up and wanted me to assist
her and her family back. I told her I did not have money but if I get
money I could assist her but in the event that I could not manage she
had a right to protest, disclose the truth and ask whoever was in charge
to return her into the country.
The calls were so many but when I
refused to pick she wrote me numerous text messages which I wish to give
you where she was stating the same thing. I wish to read you some of
the messages. During the course of my acquaintance with Paul Irani I
started developing great doubts on the competence of the Office of the
Prosecutors (OTP) investigations. I met the investigators severally at
various meetings and raised some of these issues:-
i)
At one meeting I challenged Paul and one Silvano from Burkina Faso if
they would be able to succeed in establishing the truth when they were
carrying out armchair investigations in a hotel on the basis of
information from people who were known gold diggers roaming the streets
of Eldoret after he showed me a list of the names he had lined up as his
sources of information and investigation.
ii) I also
reminded him that witness 536 had confided in me she was not in the
employment of the politician she was alleging she was working for at the
time and she had not been a cook. I told him that the same case had
been dismissed by the court in Nakuru. He dismissed my concerns and told
me to leave him alone.
He tried sending me to find other individuals
whose names he gave me. I contacted some of them. I met some of them
but I told him that those people were unreliable.
He flew back
sometime in February or March this year then on 13th September this year
he contacted me on phone and via email asking me to meet him urgently
because my life was in danger and he wanted me to leave the country
immediately. He suggested that he meets me at The Hague, Uganda or
Nairobi as the last option. I agreed to go to Nairobi on 15th September
2013 for the meeting. The email he wrote to me is attached and I wish to
read parts of it. I met him with another white man at Topelli
restaurant. I expected a cordial meeting but when I arrived at the
meeting Paul Irani ordered me to dismantle all my phones. I accepted to
do so after quarrelling for over 10 minutes.
Immediately he told me that he had two options for me:-
i)
He told me that he knew that I had been working with
the Deputy President to coerce and compromise witnesses and that I
should cooperate with him and the prosecution and accept to implicate
the Deputy President after which we would fly out of the country with
him that night because my life was in danger.
ii)
Alternatively he was going to engineer and have a warrant of arrest be
issued against me and that I could be jailed for five years. But that as
a friend he did not want to be jailed and that the best option was for
me to implicate the Deputy President.
I was greatly infuriated by
these suggestions. I told him that I did not remember the last time I
met William Ruto and I told him if I ever met and spoke with Ruto it was
way back in 2007 but from then and up to the time I was meeting him I
had not met him but he retorted that I had met him after he came from
Japan. I told him that those were lies, I could not accept those lies
and that he should go ahead and cause the warrants to be issued. I told
him that I was ready to stand in any court to refute those lies.
He
told me that I was becoming difficult and he was going to arrest me
right away. I told him to dare arrest me. I rose from my chair picked my
bag and went to the washrooms but when I came out the two called me
back. I was extremely fearful and in order to get away from them, I told
them that I would get back to them. They gave me Ksh 7,200 for
accommodation and transport. They suggested that after I had considered
he options I should escape with them to Uganda. I never contacted them
again.
I have now heard rumours, which the prosecution should confirm
or deny that a warrant of arrest has been issued against me over an
alleged interference/prevention of witness number 536 from attending
court.
Am ready and prepared to defend myself against these
allegations, which are false. I have special knowledge of all the
investigators machinations relating to the recruitment of this witness
536 and others and I will not be blackmailed to tell lies. I am aware of
the activities of the investigators and what they are doing now and
have done in the past.
I respect the court, I respect the rights of
the accused persons to a fair hearing, and the victims right to get
justice but I do not accept coercion and unorthodox means of implicating
accused persons and conducting investigations to attain an unjust end.
I
wish to inform you that the conversation of 15th September 2013 was
recorded by Irani and I challenge him to produce the entire unedited
clip to the court and all concerned. I also recorded parts of the
proceedings which I am ready to produce to prove what I am saying.
I
have already instructed my advocate Mr Nick Kaufmann to appear for me
and bring the above matters to the attention of the court. I attach here
to a letter from my advocate.
Thank you.
Yours faithfully
Walter Barasa.
