Kenya asks U.N. Security Council to end Hague case against president

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Kenya has asked the U.N. Security Council to end International Criminal Court proceedings against President Uhuru Kenyatta and others, but council diplomats who discussed the request on Thursday said the 15-member body could not stop the case.

The Security Council is only able to defer International Criminal Court proceedings for one year under article 16 of the Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court a decade ago. The council would need to adopt a resolution to do that.

"The letter from the Kenyans is slightly bizarre because they are actually asking the Security Council to do something that it has no authority to do," said a senior council diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto were among six suspects initially charged by ICC prosecutors with orchestrating tribal violence after the 2007 election, when some 1,200 people were killed. Kenyatta and Ruto both deny the charges.

In a letter to the Security Council, Kenya said the implications of Kenyatta's trial "for the viability and continuity of the state should be self evident." Kenyatta's trial is due to start in July.

"What this delegation is asking for is not deferral. What this delegation is asking for is the immediate termination of the case at the Hague without much further ado," Kenya wrote to the Security Council.

The Security Council discussed the request on Thursday. The senior council diplomat said it was unlikely there would be "widespread support" for deferring the proceedings against Kenyatta - who was elected in March - for a year.

The International Criminal Court on Monday postponed the trial of Ruto on charges of crimes against humanity, saying it wanted to hold further hearings with the prosecution and the defense. Ruto asked the ICC last month to postpone the start of the trial to give his legal team more time to prepare.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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Congolese warlord to make first appearance before Hague court

By Thomas Escritt

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda makes his first public appearance before the International Criminal Court in the Hague on Tuesday after evading arrest on war crimes charges for seven years - a boost to the court following a string of setbacks.

Ntaganda is accused of murder, rape and other atrocities over a 15-year-period of fighting in Rwandan-backed rebellions in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He unexpectedly gave himself up to diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda last week, walking in off the street and demanding to be handed over the ICC. Within days he was put on a plane to The Hague.

His appearance in the court almost seven years after the court first issued a warrant for his arrest is a much-needed success story for the ICC following the collapse of several cases.

Most recently, prosecutors withdrew their case against Kenyan civil servant Francis Muthaura after a witness retracted his testimony, prompting lawyers for his co-accused Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's president-elect, to demand that judges also drop charges against him.

With many of the court's suspects, including Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, at large and beyond its reach, Ntaganda's arrival is especially welcome to prosecutors and activists.

"Ntaganda's appearance at the ICC after years as a fugitive offers victims of horrific crimes a real hope of seeing justice," said Geraldine Mattioli-Zeltner, international justice advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

"Ntaganda's detention in The Hague shows that no one is above the law."

He is accused of recruiting child soldiers, murder, ethnic persecution, sexual slavery and rape during a 2002-2003 conflict in northeastern Congo's mineral-rich Ituri district.

His whereabouts had been unknown after he had fled to Rwanda with hundreds of his followers, and his decision to turn himself in to the U.S. Embassy in the capital Kigali caught diplomats there by surprise.

Analysts said he may have felt that his life would be safer in an ICC detention cell than in an increasingly hostile Rwanda. But it could still be a long while before the case moves to trial.

At Tuesday's hearing, Ntaganda will be asked to confirm his identity. The court is also likely to appoint a lawyer for him, and set a date for a hearing at which judges will decide whether the evidence against him is strong enough to warrant a trial.

The warlord, who was most recently a commander in the M23 rebel movement, will have been seen by doctors soon after his arrival at the court's detention centre.

He may also have been issued with a suit for his first court appearance, to replace his fatigues.

"We do everything that we can for the physical and psychological well-being of detainees," said ICC spokesman Fadi El-Abdallah, the ICC's spokesperson.

That included providing smart clothes for the suspect to wear to court.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Sara Webb and Angus MacSwan)

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U.S. seeks swift transfer of Congo warlord to Hague court

By Jenny Clover

KIGALI (Reuters) - The United States is seeking the swift transfer of a Congolese warlord from its embassy in Rwanda to a war crimes tribunal for a trial that could help eastern Democratic Republic of Congo inch towards peace.

Bosco Ntaganda gave himself up to the U.S. Embassy in Kigali on Monday after a 15-year career that spanned a series of Rwandan-backed rebellions in eastern Congo.

He asked to be sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague where he faces war crimes charges.

Ntaganda's departure from the conflict zone, where he was a leading commander in the M23 group fighting Congolese forces, could improve prospects for stability in a region where vast mineral resources have fuelled two decades of conflict.

But the trial of Rwandan-born Ntaganda could also prove an embarrassment to the Rwandan government which has denied charges by a U.N. panel that accused it of backing the M23 rebels. The could take months or even longer to start.

"This is an opportunity to advance a little bit of peace and stability in the eastern Congo," Johnnie Carson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told a conference call on Ntaganda's situation.

He also said Rwanda could use the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to a February deal signed in Addis Ababa that called for regional states to help end conflict in Congo.

He said the Rwandan government had offered "appropriate assurances" that it would not interfere in the process of transferring Ntaganda, who needs to be transported through the capital to the airport in coordination ICC authorities.

Speaking from Washington, Carson said he wanted Ntaganda moved "as quickly as possible". He did not give a precise timeline.

OBSTACLE TO PEACE?

"The next 48 hours or so will be critical," Carson said. Practical arrangements were still being worked out and ICC officials were heading to Rwanda to help with those logistics. In the meantime, he said Ntaganda did not have access to communications equipment at the embassy that might allow him to contact former comrades in the field.

Ntaganda faces charges of recruiting child soldiers, murder, ethnic persecution, sexual slavery and rape during the 2002-3 conflict in northeastern Congo's gold-mining Ituri district.

Ntaganda's whereabouts had been unknown after hundreds of his fighters fled into Rwanda or surrendered to U.N. peacekeepers at the weekend following their defeat by a rival faction of M23 rebels in the mineral-rich eastern Congo.

With an arrest warrant hanging over him, Ntaganda and his faction were seen as an obstacle to a peace deal between the M23 and the Congolese government. Jason Stearns of the Rift Valley Institute, a research body working in the region, said he might have feared being sold out.

But his decision to give himself up may improve the prospects for a deal that the M23 faction he opposed has shown signs of warming to.

Born in Rwanda, Ntaganda grew up in Congo before fighting alongside Rwandan Tutsi rebels who seized control of the small central Africa country, ending the 1994 genocide in which over 800,000 people died.

For Rwanda, the worries of being implicated by Ntaganda in any testimony when on trial may be outweighed by the desire to avoid being seen as a nation seeking to protect an ICC indictee.

"It's possible the Rwandans will be nervous about what he might say if he got on the stand in the Hague," said Ben Shepherd, an analyst at Chatham House, a London-based international affairs institute.

But Shepherd said the relationship between Ntaganda and Rwanda was ambiguous so Kigali might be confident it could avoid being implicated or might simply be hoping it would take years before he stood trial.

(Writing by Edmund Blair and Richard Lough in Nairobi; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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