WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? Fatou Bensouda (R) replaced Luis Moreno-Ocampo (L) as ICC chief prosecutor in May 2011
The defense team of former DR Congo vice president Jean Pierre Bemba at the ICC trial has discovered letters from 23 extremely protected witnesses in which they ask for their money promised to them by the prosecutor.
The development, according to the defense, was made when they landed on a letter of one the unnamed witnesses towards the end of November reminding the prosecutor of his payment. However, as the defense prepared to inform the trial chamber of their discovery, the entire team was arrested on November 23-24.
The four taken into custody were: Aimé Kiolo Musamba, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo’s lead counsel; Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo, a member of Mr. Bemba’s defense team and case manager; Fidèle Babala Wandu, a member of the DRC Parliament and Deputy Secretary General of Bemba’s party the Mouvement de Libération du Congo; and Narcisse Arido, a defense witness. All the four were arrested in different countries and transferred to the ICC in The Hague.
The new revelations concerning the ICC prosecutor paying witnesses was made in the trial chamber hearing the case of one of them Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo on December 5th.
Defense attorney Maître Jean Flamme angrily informed the judge that prosecution had illegally accessed their confidential correspondences and listened in on phone conversations.
Describing the discovery of the letters as “extremely grave”, Maître Flamme said the prosecutor used illegally obtained information to order for the arrest of the four accused.
The ICC prosecutor claimed the individuals were specifically alleged to have presented falsified or forged documents and to have bribed certain witnesses to falsely testify in Bemba’s trial. The Prosecutor also alleged that Bemba was the one who ordered, solicited, and induced the attempts to pervert the course of justice.
In the current case, the defense says they were in the process of evoking ICC powers that call for review of all the prosecution witnesses. The defense was also planning to ask Bemba’s trial chamber to recall the 23 witnesses in question who wrote letters asking for their payments.
Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, was a former Vice President of the DRC and leader of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) rebel group. Bemba is on trial over two counts of crimes against humanity including murder and rape, and three counts of war crimes including murder, rape, and pillaging. In 2002, Bemba allegedly sent MLC troops into the Central African Republic (CAR), which neighbors the DRC, in order to help put down a coup d’état against former CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse.
Bemba’s troops allegedly committed acts of rape, murder and pillage in CAR in 2002 and 2003. The presentation of Bemba’s case was completed on November 22, 2013, three years after his trial commenced. It is the same day that the ICC Prosecutor filed arrested warrants ordering the arrest Bemba’s legal team.
It is not entirely clear how the court is going to respond to the new damning revelations about the prosecutor’s witnesses, who are all protected and anonymous.