Gicheru lawyers claim witness lied to ICC investigators

Defense lawyers in the trial of Paul Gicheru at the International Criminal Court  (ICC) yesterday tried to portray the third witness as a liar.

P-0613 who was the third witness in the case at the Hague-based court had on Wednesday tabled in court, recordings of fellow witnesses, who she claimed had tried to convince her to withdraw as a witness.

She claimed they wanted her not to testify in the Deputy President William Ruto and Joshua Sang Post-Election Violence case.

Yesterday, the witness confirmed to the court that she has never spoken to Gicheru on phone or even met him.

Corruptly influencing

Gicheru is facing eight counts relating to corruptly influencing witnesses regarding cases from the situation in Kenya.

Gicheru’s lawyer Michael G. Karnavas tore into the witness’ evidence claiming she lied to the ICC investigators that she had three children yet she had only one, so that she could get more money.

“You only have one son and yet, from the very outset, you’ve always represented that you had three children,” asked Karnavas.

“Yes your honour, the reason being (that) in our culture we always say your children and your brothers’ children are also your children,” replied the witness.

Karnavas argued that the witness claimed to have three children because the more children she had, the more money she would get from ICC.

 “We see some figures of Sh42,500 for your child to attend the primary school. Then Sh38,838 for the other two children and the total was  Sh120,176… that was money that was provided to you by the OTP,” said the lawyer.

The lawyer questioned the credibility of the witness noting that the first time she met with the ICC investigators, they had declined to take her as a witness because her stories were hearsays obtained from second and third parties.

“Months later you have a second interview in July 2013  and during that interview, after being given an opportunity to read what you  said the first time, you said you had more information to  give,” stated the defense.

The witness claimed she did not give much information in the first interview because she feared for her security.

The witness confirmed to court that the people she recorded were well known to her .

“I recorded the conversations through my phone. Nobody put pressure on me , nobody threatened me or coerced me to do the recordings,” she told the court.

The cross-examination continues today.