Kenya: Bensouda Says Uhuru Team Tried to Bribe Her Witnesses

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has claimed she has telephone recordings of associates of President Uhuru Kenyatta inducing two key witnesses to withdraw their evidence.

Bensouda filed a 41 page document on Tuesday opposing Uhuru's application to stay the proceedings against him.

She argued that Uhuru's "application for a permanent stay of proceedings comes nowhere near the high threshold the Appeals Chamber has established for such relief. On the contrary, the matters raised in the Application show why a trial is necessary."

"The arguments regarding the credibility of the Prosecution's Mungiki witnesses merely raise possible avenues of cross-examination and lines of defence. The Defence's arguments on witness credibility - which omit facts that undermine the Defence's position and which the Prosecution disputes - are reasons to have a trial, not reasons to avoid a trial," she said.

Bensouda named people who offered witnesses P-0011 and P-0012 money to drop their testimony but their names are redacted. Bensouda said she recorded the telephone conversations of the bribery attempts with permission of the witnesses.

Uhuru has already claimed that the same two witnesses witness 11 and 12 wanted to extort money from him before crossing to the prosecution. During the confirmation of charges hearings in September 2011, he claimed they were "professional criminal extortionists".

In an application to the court for a stay in October 2013, Uhuru accused the same two witnesses of interfering with defense investigations. "To determine the scope of the bribery scheme, the Prosecution conducted a series of monitored telephone calls between P-0012 and [REDACTED], and between the witness and his family members," Bensouda stated..

"The conversations revealed that [REDACTED], holding himself out as acting on behalf of the Accused, offered P-0012 money and other benefits in exchange for the witness's agreement to withdraw his evidence," she said.

Bensouda said the redacted person indicated that "Mr Kenyatta was informed of the scheme and wanted to avoid direct involvement because he was concerned about getting caught tampering with evidence."

Africa: Commission Condemns Coerced Sterilisation of HIV+ Women

In a landmark pronouncement for women's rights, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) has condemned the coerced sterilisation of women living with HIV as a blatant violation of their fundamental rights, which are guaranteed under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Following reports of coerced and forced sterilisation of women living with HIV in numerous African countries in recent years, including South Africa, Kenya, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia, the ACHPR's resolution denouncing the practice has been warmly welcomed by activists and civil society groups across the continent.

"The Commission's resolution sends a very clear message to African governments that they must take urgent measures to end the coerced sterilisation of women living with HIV in their countries," said Nyasha Chingore, a lawyer from the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), which has long campaigned for an end to the practice. "It is time for the authorities to promote the sexual and reproductive rights of women rather than to sit idly by as they are violated."

The Commission adopted the strongly worded Resolution on Involuntary Sterilisation and Protection of Human Rights in Access to HIV Services on November 4th during its 54th ordinary session in Banjul.

The resolution condemned all forms of stigma and discrimination in terms of access to, and provision of, health services in the context of HIV. It also made it clear that all forms of involuntary sterilisation violated women's rights to equality and non-discrimination, dignity, liberty and security of the person, and freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as the right to the highest attainable physical and mental health as enshrined in regional and international human rights instruments.

"This resolution by one of Africa's premier human rights bodies is a major step forward, which will give women living with HIV some confidence that their rights are also protected under the African human rights system," said Gladys Kiio, Programme Manager of the African Gender and Media Initiative Trust (GEM), which has documented the stories of women subjected to coerced sterilisation in Kenya. "It will also help to focus attention on a shameful - but still widespread - practice that most people in Africa know nothing about."

Currently, women in Kenya and Namibia, who were subjected to coerced sterilisation, are challenging the practice in court arguing that it violated their fundamental rights. The Commission's resolution can only strengthen their legal attempts to bring an end to the involuntary sterilisation of women living with HIV and other marginalised women, including women with disabilities.

Sudan: UN Experts Call On Sudan to Stop Threatening Women With Flogging

Two United Nations independent experts today warned Sudan against threatening women with flogging, stressing this practice amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment that goes against international law.

"Premarital sex, adultery, failing to prove rape, dressing 'indecently' or 'immorally', being found in the company of a man, or committing acts that are deemed incompatible with chastity - these are some of the offences for which women have been chastised with flogging in various parts of the world," said the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo. "This needs to stop."

On Monday, Amira Osman Hamed, a 35-year-old Sudanese civil engineer and women's rights activist was charged with dressing indecently or immorally for refusing to cover her hair with a headscarf. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to corporal punishment of up to 40 lashes.

Following Monday's hearing, Ms. Osman Hamed remains in legal limbo while the prosecution decides if additional hearings will take place or if the case will be dismissed.

"Given continued discrimination and inequalities faced by women, including inferior roles attributed to them by patriarchal and traditional attitudes, and power imbalances in their relations with men, maintaining flogging as a form of punishment, even when it applies to both women and men, means in practice that women disproportionally face this cruel punishment, in violation of their human rights to dignity, privacy and equality," said Frances Raday, the chairperson of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice.

The experts called for the immediate release of Ms. Osman Hamed and for the Government of Sudan to review its legislation related to flogging.

Under international human rights law, corporal punishment can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment or even to torture, and States cannot invoke provisions of domestic law to justify violations of their human rights obligations under international law.

"Corporal punishment of women and girls is usually linked to the control and limitation of their freedom of movement, freedom of association, as well as their personal and sexual choices. Punishment usually has a collective dimension, and is public in character, as the visibility of the issue also serves a social objective, namely, influencing the conduct of other women," the experts said.

"We call on States to abolish all forms of judicial and administrative corporal punishment, and to act with due diligence to prevent, respond to, protect against, and provide redress for all forms of gender-based violence."

Mali: Al Qaeda Claims Responsibility for French Journalists Murder in Mali

Al Qaeda's north African branch has claimed responsibility for the murder of two French journalists who were abducted in northern Mali. The cell said the killings were to avenge France's "new crusade" in its old colony.

In a statement published online by Mauritanian news agency Sahara Media on Wednesday (06.11.2013), the terrorist cell al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said the two French journalists were killed in retaliation for "crimes perpetrated by France and its UN, Malian and African allies."

"The organization considers that this is the least of the price which (French) President Francois Hollande and his people will pay for their new crusade," the communique added.

France launched a military operation in January in a bid to rid the area of Islamic extremists.

The kidnapping did not fit the network's usual means of operation according to Jean-Paul Rouiller, director of the Geneva Centre for Training and Analysis of Terrorism and an expert on al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

A Mali intelligence office involved with the case told the Associated Press news agency, on the condition of anonymity, that investigators believe the kidnapping to be the work of a lower-level jihadist attempting to please al Qaeda operatives in the Islamic Maghreb after being accused of stealing money.

Two French nationals, Ghislaine Dupont, a senior correspondent and Claude Verlon, a production technician, who worked for the country's international broadcaster Radio France Internationale, were kidnapped on Saturday. Several hours later, their bodies were found near their kidnapper's vehicle, which had broken down, 12 kilometers (seven miles) outside Kidal. The pair had just finished interviewing an ethnic Tuareg rebel leader in the town.

Kidal was the birthplace of a Tuareg uprising last year that plunged Mali into chaos. A subsequent military coup created a power vacuum that allowed the rebels to seize control of the country's north.

French daily newspaper Le Monde reported Tuesday that three of the four alleged abductors had been identified by French intelligence. Both the French government and the presidency refused to comment on the allegations.

On Tuesday, France announced it had increased the number of troops in the Kidal area, where the journalists were abducted from, by 150. The region is a stronghold of the Tuareg separatist rebels and where instability has grown in recent months.

At least 18 foreigners have been abducted, many of them French nationals, since 2003 the global intelligence group Stratfor reports.

Africa: Innovations That Could Save 1.2 Million Lives Showcased

Ten innovations that could save the lives of 1.2 million children and mothers by the end of 2015 and help achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals have been highlighted in a recent report by a US-based international NGO.

PATH worked with public and private institutions to produce a shortlist of promising low-cost health innovations and then used a modelling tool to estimate how many lives could be saved if they were implemented in developing nations.

The modelling is based on the innovations' use in the 75 highest-burden countries for maternal, newborn and child death, says Joy Lawn, a paediatrician at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, who was involved in developing the modelling tool.

"The 75 countries include all low and most middle income countries and over 95 per cent of all the world's maternal newborn and child deaths," says Lawn.

She says the PATH used data on the causes of deaths of children and mothers, and the coverage of each planned or ongoing health intervention, to help estimate the number of lives each innovation could save.

"The ten innovations are not equal in their impact," Lawn tells SciDev.Net. "Some are already out there and starting to make a big difference, while others are still in pilot studies."

Amie Batson, chief strategy officer at PATH, says the shortlist highlights "the power of innovations to make change".

"We could have had 15 or 20, but we focused on what was going to be the most impactful and provided a sense to the community about the array of interventions," Batson tells SciDev.Net.

These innovations include ROTAVAC, a vaccine against the diarrhoea-causing rotavirus that was developed by a team led by the Indian government, and a diarrhoea-treatment-and-prevention kit (Kit Yamoyo) designed by UK charity ColaLife.

Kit Yamoyo (meaning kit of life in Chichewa language) makes use of drink firm Coca-Cola's distribution chain to reach remote areas in Zambia.

"I saw that you could get a Coca-Cola everywhere but you could not get medicine to treat a child with diarrhoea," Simon Berry, founder and CEO of ColaLife, tells SciDev.Net. Kit Yamoyo is designed to sit in empty spaces between soft drink bottles in full crates.

Kenya: Police Now Imply 'Liz' May Be Lying About Rape

Nairobi — The police now say it is unlikely 16 year old Busia girl popularly known as just 'Liz' was gang raped in the wee hours of June 27, 2013.

The Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo made the revelation on Saturday just two days after women's advocacy group Femnet mounted demonstrations outside his Jogoo House Office.

"Unfortunately, our investigations have revealed information which the public do not have and which members of the public need to appreciate before they offer a blanket condemnation on the incident," he said in a statement.

Kimaiyo said the findings of their investigations do not corroborate the girl's account pointing out that the time that elapsed between Liz calling out for help and her being found did not allow for a gang rape.

"The time span between the screams for help and when the villagers actually came out to her rescue is given as too short for six assailants to have gang raped her," Kimaiyo's statement reads.

Kimaiyo also based his analysis on the fact that Liz was repeatedly asked both by her mother and medical personnel whether she was raped and she responded to the negative.

The Inspector General of Police did not however factor in the stigma and trauma that are the natural consequence of a sexual assault.

Even so he went on to explain that she was not found in a pit-latrine as alleged but three metres away from one under a mango tree where she sat after pulling herself out of the pit latrine.

"The girl later explained that she fell into the pit latrine as she was escaping from the assailants and that she struggled on her own to come out of it," he reported.

On further interrogation, Administration Police Spokesman Masoud Mwinyi also denied the allegation that the police 'sentenced' Liz' assailants to grass-cutting for their crime.

In his statement Kimaiyo explains that the assailants were only set free after the girl's and assailants' parents agreed to put the matter behind them.

"The girl gave the names of some of the assailants who she was able to identify and they were rounded up and arrested and taken to Tingolo AP Camp... deliberations between the families also resolved to have the suspects released since the condition of the girl was not serious."

A determination Kimaiyo says was made only after the girl was subjected to a medical examination at the Musibiri Dispensary.

"It is only after she was admitted at Kakamega District Hospital on August 26, 2013 that she disclosed that she had been raped," Kimaiyo said in his statement.

And Mwinyi told Capital FM News that none of the medical reports neither from Musibiri or Kakamega, where she had been taken after complaining of lower back pain, indicated that she had been raped.

Getting to the crux of the matter, Kimaiyo explained that while his office had forwarded Liz' case file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, he found it unlikely that it would go much further.

"Elizabeth took two months for her to report this fact. It may therefore be futile to charge the suspects in a court of law with rape without proper evidence as the case will just collapse," he projected.

He did however say that he would be instituting disciplinary action against the three AP officers who witnessed the girl's and assailants' parents reach an agreement; not for assuming the role of the Judiciary but for failing to, "record the agreement in writing."

"Their key mistake is that this agreement was not recorded in writing. This is a matter which is treated as a serious procedural oversight and disciplinary action has been instituted against the officers," he said.

Kimaiyo's mitigation measures may have however come a little too late with Chief Justice Willy Mutunga having already ordered investigations into the police's handling of the affair.

North Africa: Niger Arrests 150 Migrants in Crackdown Over Sahara Bodies Find

Niger has arrested close to 150 people crossing the Sahara to Algeria over the past couple of days. The crackdown comes after the bodies of 92 migrants were found along the same route last month.

Authorities arrested the migrants as they attempted to cross into Algeria in a convoy of five vehicles, officials said Saturday. The migrants, who included 18 Nigerians, were taken to the northern town of Arlit.

"The migrants were mostly men with a few children. They were arrested in the desert and are being held in Arlit, the town from where they illegally left for Algeria," a security official who wished to remain anonymous said.

"The migrants are being held at the gendarmerie but we do not yet know what will become of them," another source said.

Climate migration 'a complex problem'

Climate change is forcing people to flee their homes. But when does someone become a climate migrant, and what does the status mean? Dina Ionesco from the International Organization for Migration, explains.

The latest figure came a day after Niger's government announced it had "intercepted" 47 migrants headed for Assamaka, the last town in Niger on the route to Tamanrasset, in southern Algeria on Friday. It also said it was ordering the immediate closure of migrant camps used by migrants in the north of the country, vowing that those involved in human trafficking would be "severely punished."

The renewed effort to clamp down on illegal migration and trafficking networks follows the discovery on Wednesday of 92 people who were attempting to make the same desert journey.

The victims, mostly women and children, reportedly died of thirst in early October after they were left stranded in the desert when their trucks broke down.

The group was thought to have been travelling across the Sahara on their way to Europe.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that at least 30,000 economic migrants passed through Agadez, northern Niger's largest city, between March and August of this year.

The UN ranks Niger as the least developed country on earth.