•The agenda for the conference was included in the order released by the the International Criminal Court on Wednesday.
•Some of the agenda include typical issues of start date, number and type of witnesses, statements, experts, status of investigations and disclosure and translation.
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Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru’s first pre-trial status conference has been scheduled for September 17.
The agenda for the conference was included in the order released by the the International Criminal Court on Wednesday.
The agenda includes typical issues of start date, number and type of witnesses, statements, experts, status of investigations and disclosure and translation.
According to the Order, all parties will have to provide submissions on the agenda by September 10.
Gicheru surrendered before the ICC last year following an arrest warrant issued by the Hague based court over allegations of witness interference in Deputy resident William Ruto's case.
Last month, the ICC confirmed charges Gicheru therefore committing him to trial.
According to the international court, the Chamber found that there are substantial grounds to believe that Gicheru committed, as a co-perpetrator, or under alternative modes of liability, offences against the administration of justice.
He is said to have committed the offences between April 2013 and the closure of the Ruto and Sang case on September 10, 2015, in Kenya.
According to the Court, the offences were allegedly committed in the furtherance of a common plan implemented by a group of persons including Gicheru, with the ultimate goal of undermining the Prosecution's case in the Ruto and Sang case.
Eight witnesses revealed that Gicheru, and other members of the common plan allegedly identified, located, and contacted the witnesses, offered and paid them financial or other benefits, and threatened them in order to induce them to withdraw as Prosecution witnesses.
In her previous filing, then prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the defence misstates the Prosecution’s case, misinterprets the legal standard for confirmation of charges and advances speculative theories that are unsupported by evidence.
"The defence submissions ignore or mischaracterise corroborating evidence and fail to explain why intermediaries implicated in corruptly influencing witnesses would purport to be acting on behalf of Gicheru in contemporaneous statements made in the course of the execution of the offence," she said.
Bensouda at the time said the defence’s arguments based on the “no case to answer” standard are misplaced and speculative.
"While certain Chambers have entertained motions for acquittal at the conclusion of the Prosecution case, this procedure is not specifically recognised by the legal texts of the Court and may or may not be permitted by the Trial Chamber in this case, should charges be confirmed," she said.
Edited by CM