Kenya to challenge poll chaos case at The Hague

Internal Minister George Saitoti, Attorney General Amos Wako and Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo. Photo/FILE

The Kenya government will challenge admissibility of Kenya case at the International Criminal Court.

"The government will challenge the admissibility of the cases as well as the jurisdiction of the court," said a statement by Attorney-General Amos Wako, Internal Security Minister Prof George Saitoti and Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Mutula Kilonzo.

The government said the move was within Kenya's right as contained in the Rome Statute, given that it has jurisdiction over the six suspects wanted by the ICC.

The Pre-trial Chamber II of the ICC on Tuesday found that there were grounds that six leading Kenyans were criminally liable for the violence that left 1,300 Kenyans killed and more than 600,000 homeless after chaos broke following a disputed presidential election at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008.

The ICC judges ordered the six suspects to appear at The Hague on April 7.

Agreement

The ICC took the Kenya case after parliament rejected moves to set up a local tribunal and asked that the cases be referred to The Hague. The government had earlier signed an agreement to cooperate with ICC on the cases.

The suspects are Uhuru Kenyatta (Deputy Prime Minister), Francis Muthaura (Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Civil Service) and Hussein Ali (former Police Commissioner, currently the chief executive of the government-owned Postal Corporation) who are deemed to have acted in support of President Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU).

The others are William Ruto (Minister for Higher Education, currently suspended on an unrelated corruption case), Henry Kosgey (Minister for Industrialisation, currently suspended on an unrelated corruption case) and Joshua Sang' (Radio presenter at Kass FM) who are deemed to have acted in support of Prime Minister Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

The chaos ended after Kibaki and Raila agreed to form a grand coalition government after signing a peace deal brokered by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

Article 17 of the Rome Statute says:

Having regard to paragraph 10 of the Preamble and article 1, the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where:

(a) The case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution;

(b) The case has been investigated by a State which has jurisdiction over it and the State has decided not to prosecute the person concerned, unless the decision resulted from the unwillingness or inability of the State genuinely to prosecute;

(c) The person concerned has already been tried for conduct which is the subject of the complaint, and a trial by the Court is not permitted under article 20, paragraph 3;

(d) The case is not of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the Court.