IEBC says claims by Raila lawyers that Venezuelan Jose Camargo decided Kenya’s President-elect are ‘misleading

The IEBC, through its lawyers, has sought to dismiss claims made by Raila Odinga’s legal team that a Venezuelan national named Jose Camargo interfered with its server and thereby single-handedly decided who won Kenya’s 2022 presidential election.

The commission lawyers, Githu Muigai and Mahat Somane, termed the claims made by Odinga’s counsels Paul Mwangi and Julie Soweto that Camargo tampered with the results as incorrect and grossly misleading.

Mwangi and Soweto, in their earlier submissions before the Supreme Court, showed the 7-judge bench how some numbers contained in one Form 34A had allegedly been changed.

“At the top left-hand corner is the name of one of the Venezuelans, Jose Camargo, this is the person who decided the president-elect of this country.This person is the one who was interfering with the forms, a crump was left by God’s grace, we found something. This is how the staging, the changes were happening,” Miss Soweto had said.

But, in mitigation, lawyer Somane told the court that the form containing Camargo’s name was actually just an overlay of the original Form 34A.

“I want to produce to the court the original Form 34A, and I want to inform the court that the name Jose Camargo on that form is an overlay. The register of the QR code was printed by Smartmatic International, in the name of Jose Camargo,” he said, before Odinga’s lawyer, James Orengo, rose on a point of objection.

Orengo stated: “I think he (Somane) should transform himself to a witness and we begin to cross-examine him. Either we practice the law the way we understand the law, or anybody can confront the court with any document at any time. It is very dangerous territory, and unless clarity is given on this matter, it is going to be very difficult to operate.”

Githu and Somane however brushed off Orengo’s interjection as a mere attempt to block them from showing the court what they deemed to be the truth.

“What we’re trying to do is to show you documents in our own affidavits, in response to documents produced from the bar. Miss Soweto never produced the document she showed you in any of her affidavits. When we now invite you to look at the original, and to make the argument that there is a deliberate misrepresentation of what the original document looked like, we’re treated to this attempt to block that fact from the court. This is not a legitimate objection, this is an attempt to interfere with legitimate evidence that is on record,” said Githu.

Somane then went on to assert that, matter of factly, they had even submitted to the court the documents containing the name of Jose Camargo as part of their affidavits.

He explained that the name appeared atop the Form 34A just as a result of an innocent mistake by an IEBC official, which he noted does not show that the commission server was actually accessed by the Venezuelan.

“The document relating to Jose Camargo has come from the QR register which is distributed to every polling station, and that document is even in the possession of this court. If you look at the scrutiny report and the QR register, you will actually find the name of Jose Camargo on the register that has been printed. So what happened? A PO took an original Form 34A, he had the QR register and he took a picture of it,” he stated.

“We’ve also produced the original Form 34A, and we’re being told that you cannot produce our original Form 34A, that Jose Camargo was interfering. In fact, if you look at the numbers on the original Form 34A, it’s the same as what the picture of the overlay was taken.”

He further added: “So to the question that someone called Jose Camargo was interfering with the portal, it is not true, it’s incorrect. And the attempt to prevent that evidence from the court should actually guide the court that that is not true.”

President-elect William Ruto’s lawyer Fred Ngatia chimed in reiterating the IEBC legal team’s sentiments, terming the initial form displayed by Odinga’s counsels as misleading.

“All the forms before you have safety security features, the one that was displayed does not have. The one that you have does not have the name of Jose Camargo, the one that was displayed before the court has that name of Jose Camargo. And all those things were meant to deceive. They were meant to mislead,” said Ngatia.