The International Criminal Court at the Hague Netherlands, has given local journalists and bloggers a stern warning over witness exposure.
The presiding Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji warned that the court has the power to investigate and charge anyone involved in witness tampering which he termed as contempt of court.
This comes hours after a local news journalist allegedly revealed the identity of the first witness, Witness 536 in a case pitting the office of the prosecutor and Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto and former radio presenter Joshua Sang. The two are accused of having masterminded the 2007 post election violence in Kenya.
Willis Raburu a reporter from Citizen Television,has been on the receiving end of accusation when a tweet from his account revealed the name of the witness in the Kenyan case at the ICC. He has since denied the allegations and said that his Twitter account was hacked.
The prosecutor’s office has been sounding its alarm on witness intimidation since instituting the cases against Kenyan leaders.
This is not the first time local bloggers and journalists have been embroiled with the cases. Early this year, blogger, Dennis Itumbi was accused by the police for allegedly hacking into ICC emails and exposing witnesses. One wonders if in this day and age if total privacy is a myth.