Pontius Pilate, King Herod and Others to Face Trial at The Hague?

The International Court of Justice in The Hague has been asked to revisit a 2,000-year-old case–convening a re-trial of Jesus Christ and prosecuting those responsible for his unlawful conviction.

Dola Indidis, a Kenyan lawyer who is former spokesman for Kenya’s Judiciary, has built his case on facts which you already know:  that Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate was invalid, because it was “conducted in a manner contrary to a fair trial.”   Indidis hopes to persuade the ICJ to issue a declaratory judgment that the trial judgment and sentence entered were badly done, and were therefore null and void.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Indidis is reportedly attempting to sue Tiberius (emperor of Rome, 42 BCE-37 CE), Pontius Pilate, a selection of Jewish elders, King Herod, the Republic of Italy and the State of Israel. A Kenyan TV report adds Palestine to that list of criminal offenders who are being sued by Indidis on behalf of a group called “Friends of Jesus.”

This is not the first time Mr. Indidis has brought his case to court.  He first filed in 2007 in Nairobi, in Kenya’s High Court; but that court ruled that it had no jurisdiction.  He then took his case to the UN’s top judicial body, where he hopes it will receive a formal hearing.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Indidis acknowledges that the persons responsible for Jesus’ conviction and execution are dead.  However, he believes that the governments and agencies for which they worked can and should be held responsible.  He included the modern nations of Italy and Israel in the suit because when those nations were founded, they incorporated into their charters the laws of the Roman Empire. The JP reports:

“I filed the case because it’s my duty to uphold the dignity of Jesus and I have gone to the ICJ to seek justice for the man from Nazareth,” Indidis told the Nairobian. “His selective and malicious prosecution violated his human rights through judicial misconduct, abuse of office bias and prejudice.”

Indidis … is challenging the mode of questioning used during Jesus’s trial, prosecution, hearing and sentencing; the form of punishment meted out to him while undergoing judicial proceedings and the substance of the information used to convict him.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi considers the exercise futile, at least from a theological viewpoint.  Rev. Maloba Wesonga, spokesman for the Archdiocese, said, “As we know it, the trial had to happen.  We must understand that Jesus was not vulnerable and nobody can do justice to God.”