RUTO BEEFS UP ICC LEGAL TEAM

TUESDAY, MAY 21, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY OLIVER MATHENGE

DEPUTY President William Ruto has beefed up his defence team at the International Criminal Court ahead of his trial which is now likely to start in November

 Shyamala Alagendra, a Malaysian who once worked for the the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC, and her sister Venkateswari Alagendra have joined Ruto as associate counsels.

 Last week, the court's registry informed the trial judges that the two were joining the team shortly after Karim Khan took over as lead counsel. Ruto's team is now made up of Khan, Shyamala, Venkateswari, David Hooper and Kioko Kilukumi.

 Khan and Shyamala worked together as the defence team representing former Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura who was co-accused with President Uhuru Kenyatta's.

 ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda withdrew the case again Muthaura in March this year after Witness No 4 recanted his testimony.

 Venkateswari worked for the Muthaura team but outside the court. Ruto is charged with three counts of crimes against humanity - murder, forcible transfer of population and persecution.

 The Deputy President's trial was supposed to kick off at the end of May but the court decided to consider a new date after Ruto asked for it to be postponed to November.

 Ruto has also requested that he can skip some court sessions and attend others by video link so that he has time to conduct his state duties.

 Last year, the team of Khan, Shyamala and Venkateswari secured the acquittal on all counts of war crimes of former Transport minister Fatmir Limaj at the war crimes court in Kosovo.

 The prosecution claimed that Limaj was the commander of a detention facility where Serb soldiers were executed and other civilians tortured during the 1998-1999 armed conflict between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serbia.

 In 2011, Shyamala left the ICC and joined Muthaura's defence team just weeks after Essa Faal, a Gambian national, also resigned.

 Before joining Muthaura, Shyamala was an ICC prosecutor for the Darfur cases including the one against Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir.

 She had also prosecuted Charles Taylor who was convicted of war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on April 26, 2012 .

 The ICC have charged Uhuru, Ruto and former radio journalist Joshua Sang for their role in the 2008 post-election violence where than 1,300 people died, and nearly 600,000 were displaced.