Officials from the International Criminal Court have said the forthcoming hearing for confirmation of charges against fugitive warlord , Joseph Kony will be broadcast live in Uganda.
The ICC Appeal’s Chamber early this week upheld an earlier decision allowing confirmation of charges hearing against Kony in absentia.
The hearing is set to commence on September 9 in the Hague after efforts to have the proceedings done in Uganda turned futile.
Maria Mabinty Kamara, the Head of ICC Uganda field outreach office told journalists on Friday that the hearing will be broadcast live in eight different locations around the country.
“There will be efforts to ensure accessibility of these proceedings to the victims and affected communities in eight case locations. The public information and outreach section of the registry will do everything within its powers and capacity to make these proceedings accessible, meaningful, relevant and closer to the communities,” Kamara said.
“In the absence of the court coming to Uganda as was the request, we have to the responsibility to make sure the proceedings are followed by victims, affected communities, stakeholders, media and civil society.”
Kamara said they have put in place an elaborate strategy to ensure this is done as was directed by the judges of the International Criminal Court.
“One of these strategies is the live broadcast of proceedings using one of the local or national televisions for the nation to follow them. We shall make proceedings available to the victims’ community through live streaming. We will have media engagements in Kampala and Gulu as well as mass public outreaches.”
She noted that whereas they are not sure of the duration of the proceedings, they have put in place a contingency plan to provide live broadcast of the proceedings for all the time they will go on.
“We don’t know whether it will be one week or three days but our strategy is such that we have provided for the maximum, which is five days. If it goes below that we still have capacity to publicise proceedings in Kampala, nationally and all the eight locations linked to the case of Joseph Kony ,the affected communities and all of Northern Uganda in general.”
According to Kamara, they have contracted four radio stations based in Gulu , Lira and Soroti to ensure they publicise live proceedings for all the days the hearing will be happening as well as live radio programs to not only provide live updates but explain the summary of each day of the hearing of the charges.
The international cooperation advisor in the office of the ICC chief prosecutor, Dahirou Santana said the pre-trial chamber rejected the prosecution request to call witnesses to testify during the confirmation of charges hearing.
“We wanted as prosecution to call five witnesses but we were told to rely on documents.The idea is that when it comes to confirmation of charges court relies on documentary evidence and summary of written testimony of witnesses. The hearing will take place without no witnesses called in the dock to provide evidence with judges,” Dahirou said.
Leonie Von Brown, a senior lawyer in the office of the ICC prosecutor said they are ready for the hearing of the confirmation of charges.
“The prosecution is ready. We are all looking forward to the hearing of charges case and making it a very memorable hearing,” Leonie said.
Earlier this year, ICC added three new charges , raising the number of counts to 39 against Joseph Kony.