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The case of Jean-Pierre Bemba is once again before the International Criminal Court. A hearing in the witness tampering case is being held in The Hague on Wednesday, 4 July. The former Congolese vice-president has been sentenced definitively in this case and is waiting to be fixed on his sentence. But this hearing comes mainly a month after the surprise acquittal on appeal of Jean-Pierre Bemba in the case of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Central African Republic. An acquittal that is much talked about in this Wednesday's hearing.
Defense lawyers believe that this Wednesday's hearing turns a little bit at the trial of acquittal of Jean-Pierre Bemba on appeal . They asked the judges not to take into account the " continual disagreement ", already publicly expressed by the Attorney General of Fatou Bensouda, concerning this decision.
" The verdict exists and it is final "even recalled Me Melinda Taylor, the lawyer of Jean-Pierre Bemba. For the defense, when the prosecutor's office requests the maximum sentence of five years in prison for the former vice-president and two members of his defense team because the bribing of 14 witnesses favored the acquittal of Jean-Pierre Bemba, it is a subjective opinion.
New document
The lawyer of the Congolese opponent insurgée against the registration at the registry of a new document the day before the hearing, developing this line of indictment, even introducing, she said, new elements whereas Jean-Pierre Bemba has already been definitively sentenced for specific cases.
The judges recognized that the defense had the right to feel ambushed for the introduction of a document of several dozen pages in the court's register, whereas normally the procedure no longer allowed for the registration of applications at the Registry. written by the parties
The Sensitive Issue of Evidence
The court nevertheless decided to hear them. For the prosecutor's office, it is clear that while 14 of the 34 defense witnesses were trained to give certain testimonies in writing or orally, and that others had regular contacts before their testimony, it was influence on the decision of acquittal.
For it is on the basis of some of these witnesses that the Appeals Chamber decided to overturn the conviction of Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in prison ] by saying that several mitigating circumstances had not been taken into account by the trial judges.
" Their plan worked "
Fatou's representative Bensouda cites, for example, the testimony of Witness D14, to whom Jean-Pierre Bemba's lawyer at the time, Aimé Kilolo, co-convicted for bribing witnesses, had asked to mitigate the idea that Jean-Pierre Bemba knew crimes committed by his roups in the Central African Republic
The prosecutor's first deputy quotes other witnesses, other statements and passages from the acquittal decision. " Their plan worked ", repeated the representative of Fatou Bensouda
This Wednesday morning is therefore mainly the prosecutor's office that was expressed. The defense lawyers for Jean-Jacques Kabongo began to speak, but the court suspended the hearing. The arguments resumed at 2 pm and were to continue this afternoon until 4 pm
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