International Criminal Court witness put to task on SIM cards

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was yesterday told how a prosecution witness reached out to lawyer Paul Gicheru seeking help to offset hospital bills.

Gicheru’s lawyers led by Michael G. Karnavas also took the witness to task over the number of simcards he had.

The court heard that the witness had asked for Gicheru’s number from another witness and when he was given the number, he allegedly sent an SMS message to him asking for his help to foot his uncle’s hospital bill.

At one point, the witness, under intense cross examination, asked the court to go into private session claiming his identity might be revealed given the line of questioning.

The defense further wondered why the witness had several phones and many sim cards and why he had not informed the investigators about them.

The defense claimed the evidence the witness was giving under oath, was different from the one he had given to the investigators.

The defense still insisted that the witness was not trusted by the prosecution and it is the reason they questioned him for over three hours and over three days.

On Wednesday, the defense maintained that some of the prosecution witnesses in their statements had accused him of coaching them to lie to the ICC investigating officers.

False information

“The witnesses say that you have provided them with false information…that you helped them manufacture falsehoods in order to pass them on as witnesses for the prosecution,” Karnavas posed to the witness.

“I am not aware of such incidents to the best of my knowledge. I have not manufactured or coached anyone, they are lying,” replied the witness. A second witness is expected to take the stand on Monday.