A
Kenyan lawyer, Dola Indidis, has taken to the International Court of Justice,
Hague to appeal the judgement of Pontius Pilate to crucify Jesus Christ.
“The selective and malicious prosecution (of Jesus)
violated his human rights,” said Dola Indidis, a Roman Catholic who is
petitioning the International Court of Justice, based at The Hague, to nullify
Jesus’ conviction and death sentence.
Indidis, a former spokesman for the Kenyan judiciary,
accuses Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Judea, of “judicial misconduct,
abuse of office, bias and prejudice.”
That may well be the case, at
least in the view of believers and many Bible scholars. But getting a court to rule
on a 2,000-year-old case from an outlying province in a long-defunct empire
will not be easy.
Indidis first brought his case before the Kenyan High
Court in Nairobi in 2007, but the court refused to hear it, saying it lacked
jurisdiction.
Now he is turning to the International Court of
Justice, often referred to as the World Court, which is best known for ruling
on territorial disputes between members of the United Nations.
Officials at The Hague would not confirm or deny that
they have received a petition.
But Indidis seems undeterred and points to the example
of Joan of Arc, the 15th-century saint who led the French to major victories
against the English before she was captured and burned at the stake. A
quarter-century after Joan’s death her conviction was overturned by a papal
court, and in 1920 she was canonized.
Indidis’ petition has surprised Christian leaders in
Kenya. The Rev. Maloba Wesonga, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of
Nairobi, said the exercise was futile, at least from a theological point of
view.
“As we know it, the trial had to happen,” said
Wesonga. “We must understand that Jesus was not vulnerable and nobody can do
justice to God.”
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