NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 13- British Lawyer Karim Khan was on Friday elected as the new Hague based International Criminal Court prosecutor for a nine year term.
He was Deputy President William Ruto’s lawyer at ICC and also represented former Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura.
Both cases were dropped for lack of sufficient evidence with ICC citing alleged massive witness interference.
Khan will take over in June from Gambian-born Fatou Bensouda.
Other candidates for the job included Spanish judge Carlos Castresana, who previously headed a UN panel combating crime and corruption in Guatemala but resigned in 2010 alleging “systemic attacks” by power-hungry officials, and Francesco Lo Voi, an Italian prosecutor of the Mafia.
As she exits office, Bensouda despite major setbacks, will be remembered for securing among others conviction of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen and Congolese warlord Bosco “Terminator” Ntaganda.
France 24 reported that Bensouda will also be credited for improving the prosecutor’s office compared with her predecessor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, whose leadership was described as “autocratic” in a probe ordered by the ICC into President Uhuru Kenyatta’s case.
The ICC is the world’s only permanent war crimes court, after years when the only route to justice for atrocities in countries like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia was separate tribunals.
The United States, China and Russia have refused to join the court which has a membership of 123 states, out of 193 that are members of the United Nations.
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