International prosecutor expects at least 2 Kenya election violence cases, up to 6 suspects

By Mike Corder, AP
Thursday, April 1, 2010

Prosecutor expects 2 Kenya election violence cases

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The International Criminal Court announced Thursday that it will investigate members of Kenya’s two ruling parties on charges that they instigated violence that killed more than 1,000 people after the disputed 2007 presidential election.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said he has a list of 20 possible suspects that includes leaders of President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement.

Hundreds were killed, thousands of women were raped and more 600,000 were forced from their homes after Kenya’s electoral commission declared that Kibaki had won a second term in the December 2007 poll.

Odinga’s then-opposition party claimed the vote was rigged, leading to two months of upheavals. Many protesters who clashed with police were killed, but the violence also flared along tribal lines. Odinga later became prime minister under a power-sharing deal.

“We will follow evidence and the evidence shows there were … leaders from both parties committing massive crimes,” Moreno Ocampo said.

Moreno Ocampo said his investigators would carefully study allegations of huge numbers of rape committed during the violence.

“This is central in the crimes and will be central in the investigation,” he said. “The current numbers are around 1,000 rapes. However, in some areas we have records showing for each rape reported another nine rapes happened so if this is true there were at least 10,000 rapes. We cannot ignore that.”

Judges at the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal on Wednesday gave the Argentine lawyer the required authorization to open an investigation in Kenya.

The court’s decision represents the first time major perpetrators of electoral violence in Kenya could face justice. There have been a number of parliamentary and government-appointed inquiries into election-related violence before 2007 but no action has been taken against the individuals named by those investigations.

Moreno Ocampo said he will travel to Kenya next month to talk to victims and visit crime scenes in his probe, which he intends to finalize by year’s end. The government has pledged to cooperate with Moreno Ocampo’s investigation.

“We must proceed promptly to contribute to the prevention of such crimes during the next election cycle,” he said. Kenya’s next elections are scheduled for 2012.

There have been widespread reports of witness intimidation in Kenya since the violence and Moreno Ocampo pledged to protect witnesses and to streamline cases so fewer witnesses than usual are called to testify in The Hague.

Elizabeth Evenson of Human Rights Watch said Kenya’s witness protection system is “widely acknowledged to be inadequate” and is being reformed.

Wednesday’s decision to open a Kenya investigation was welcomed by Hassan Omar Hassan of the Kenya National Commission of Human Rights, who said it is the first step toward combating impunity.

Last year, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who mediated an end to the fighting, sent Moreno Ocampo a sealed envelope with the names of suspected ringleaders named by an independent commission. Their names were not disclosed, but the commission said they included Cabinet ministers, business people and police officers.

Annan welcomed the investigation.

“Justice for the victims suddenly looks brighter,” he said in a brief statement. “I urge all concerned to fully cooperate with the ICC.”

____

Associated Press Writer Tom Maliti in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

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