00:00Now, I'm not going to engage upon a wholesale forensic analysis of the credibility of each and every witness.
00:09I am long enough in a tooth to appreciate that issues of credibility and weight are not normally litigated at
00:18confirmation, but are left to trial.
00:21This case, however, is unique.
00:23And as I have said, the prosecution's star witnesses are self-confessed murderers, and most of their statements were taken
00:33by the prosecution's investigators with the assurance of limited use, namely that anything self-incriminating would not be used against
00:45them in proceedings at the ICC.
00:49Although Mr. Nichols will undoubtedly tell you that these agreements of limited use are not to be understood as the
00:57grant of immunity from prosecution, for all intents and purposes, they are.
01:05And I am prepared to wager that we will not see even one, not one, of these incriminating witnesses in
01:14a dock at this court, nor in a dock at any court anywhere in the world,
01:20after they have been rehoused and given protection at considerable expense to the state parties funding this court.
01:29I do not think that I would be alone either in believing that there is something morally repugnant or even
01:38questionable from a public policy standpoint to shield not only one,
01:45but a number of murderers from prosecution at the ICC just in an attempt to nail Rodrigo Duterte.
01:54Indeed, in many common law jurisdictions, the use of a self-avowed murderer to convict an alleged murderer would normally
02:06entail vetting and scrutiny of the highest order.
02:12Those words, if I'm not mistaken, come from the Crown Prosecution Service's instruction manual, public source.
02:21In fact, I would suggest that it would normally only be approved, firstly, when it is considered of more value
02:29to have a suspected person as a witness than as a possible accused.
02:36Secondly, whether obtaining the conviction of an alleged murderer is more important than the release of a self-confessed murderer.
02:47And finally, whether it is likely that a conviction could be obtained without the cooperation of the self-confessed murderer,
02:57or a number of them.
03:00Even after this vetting process, most courts in common law jurisdictions require an evidentiary supplement
03:09before relying on the sole testimony of a cooperating criminal witness, or what is otherwise called an accomplice witness.
03:22Such an evidentiary supplement in legal parlance is called corroboration, and rules exist governing what may be deemed suitable corroboration.
03:37I'm pretty sure that these considerations were never considered by the prosecution, for one very simple reason.
03:48At least two of the most prominent accomplice witnesses were offered up to the prosecution on a silver platter,
04:00and I cannot say by who in open session.
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