"I cooked up stories to fix Ruto, Sang so I could go abroad," witness tells ICC

ICC: Paul Gicheru ran a criminal scheme

ICC claims that there existed, from at least April 2013, a criminal scheme specifically designed to approach and corruptly influence witnesses of the Prosecutor through bribery and other incentives in exchange for either their withdrawal or recantation of their prior statements to the Prosecutor.

The court says Gicheru was the manager and coordinator of the said scheme, who ICC says “finalised agreements with corrupted witnesses, organised the formalisation of their withdrawal and handled the payment.”

Another Kenyan who is still at large, Philip Kipkoech Bett, who is not in ICC custody is suspected to have been the person who contacted witnesses and making initial proposals before bringing them to the managers, particularly Paul Gicheru.

According to the charges, ICC claims that witness P-397, for example, was promised KSh5 million in exchange of withdrawal as a witness of the Prosecutor.

“There is also information that those witnesses who were successfully corrupted were enticed to make contact with other witnesses, for the purpose of their corruption,” insists ICC.

The 2007/08 violence saw at least 1,300 Kenyans losing their lives, hundreds injured and more than 600,000 displaced.