Former MP pleads innocence against war crimes

• With every passing day bringing JAYNE KIHARA closer to trial at The Hague over the post-election killings in her Naivasha constituency – or so she strongly believes – the former MP has become the first probable Waki List suspect to publicly express fear of international prosecution.

A former MP has become the first person to publicly express fear of prosecution at the International Criminal Court at The Hague over the post-election violence.

But former Naivasha MP Jayne Kihara said she was being used as ‘‘a sacrificial lamb’’ and blamed powerful political forces for her ordeal.

“This is political power play. They want to use me as a sacrificial lamb to protect their own,” the former MP told Saturday Nation, apparently alluding to senior people in government.

An estimated 1,133 people died during the violence which ended with the signing of a power-sharing deal between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga in February last year.

ICC judges are expected to give a ruling on whether or not prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo should start investigations into the Kenyan case. A decision is expected before the court takes its Christmas vacation.

Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who mediated the coalition agreement, is currently in the country for meetings with President Kibaki and Mr Odinga.

Mr Annan has supported a local tribunal to deal with suspects, but the government’s position is that emphasis should be placed on reconciliation.

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Agriculture minister William Ruto are in court trying to have their names removed from a report — by the government’s rights body, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights — of people accused of involvement in the violence.

Mrs Kihara was named in the same report as having played a role in the Naivasha attacks against members of some communities from western Kenya.

But she denies any involvement in the violence. “I don’t know who planned and executed the violence because I was never in Naivasha at the time nor was I in a State House meeting where revenge attacks are said to have been planned.”

Credible evidence

Mrs Kihara also says she will not go court to clear her name because she “does not have money.”

The Waki commission which investigated the cause of the chaos reported that it had credible evidence that political and business leaders from Naivasha mobilised members of the outlawed Mungiki sect to attack Kalenjins, Luos and Luhyias in the area. The commission said the Naivasha violence was planned at meetings held at State House and at Nairobi’s Safari Club.

Mrs Kihara accuses the “powerful forces” of teaming up with her opponents to give “false” evidence before KNCHR, which was later presented to the Waki team and eventually Mr Ocampo.

The Narc-Kenya politician sees the allegations as a plot by the real chief masterminds of the violence to escape justice.