14/03/2025
𝗘𝗦 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿
Your honors, the whole world has witnessed the degrading fashion in which a former president of a sovereign country was bundled onto a private aircraft and summarily transported to The Hague. To us lawyers this would be called an extrajudicial rendition - to the less legally inclined it was pure and simple kidnapping. My client was denied all access to legal recourse in the country of his citizenship and this - all in the name of political score settling. Two troubled entities struck an unlikely alliance - an incumbent President who wished to neutralise and choke the legacy of my client and his daughter on the one hand, and a troubled legal institution subject to delegitimization and desperate for a prize catch and a legal show today on the other hand. With this in mind, it is not surprising that my client was abducted from his own country. ICC private jets do not drop out of thin air. That jet which received my client was coordinated in advance. The UAE is not a State Party to the ICC and has no obligation to cooperate with the court. yet my client sat in transit in that country for more than 5 hours. I invite the Registry’s representative - present today in the court - to explain to the judges exactly how they believe that this transfer was anything other than a gross abuse of process.
Given the precipitous arrival of my client - an elderly man with debilitating medical issues, hard of hearing and poor of sight, he was taken to hospital for observation. Only this morning have I now met him for the first time with less than an hour to discuss legal issues. I have not been able to present him with a hard copy of the arrest warrant because I was not supplied with such. I have not even been able explain to him what the Prosecution requested when seeking the issuance of the arrest warrant. This is because this Chamber only published a redacted version of the Prosecution request last night. Other than to identify himself, my client is not able to contribute anything to this hearing. Most importantly, he is not able even tell you that he has been informed of the charges as contained in the arrest warrant for another reason more pertinent to which I alluded in my written request to this honorable Pre-Trial Chamber this morning and which is confidential ex parte.
Accordingly, I repeat my respectful request which was rejected this morning, to postpone the substantive aspects of this hearing to next week when I will have had the opportunity to sit with my client and to explain to him what a confirmation hearing is, what disclosure is and how the Prosecution alleges that he committed crimes.
I thank the Court for its attention and regret to say that I do not have instructions to continue my submissions any further today.
