A widely shared video showing Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru, who is on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, pleading guilty has been faked.
The clip, which has been viewed thousands of times on Twitter, has been edited to remove some audio to make it appear as if the accused pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
In fact, he had pleaded not guilty to all charges at the start of his case.
In the original video and transcript released by the ICC, in response to the judge’s question about whether he would like to make an admission of guilt to any of the charges, Mr Gicheru said: “Not at all. Madam president for the record, I plead not guilty, not guilty.”
The edited video has “Not at all” taken out, together with “not” just before the word “guilty.”
Some posts of the manipulated video are still online although some have been deleted.
Mr Gicheru is accused of bribing and intimidating prosecution witnesses in a case against Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, who was accused of fomenting election violence 14 years ago, in which more than 1,000 people died.
The ICC threw out the case against Mr Ruto citing a lack of evidence, but refused to acquit him. He has always denied the charges.
Source: BBC
