Raila has no will to defend Ruto at ICC, claims Kuria
What you need to know:
- Mr Odinga, issued a statement on Monday, saying he was willing to testify for Mr Ruto as long as President Uhuru Kenyatta orders his close allies to disclose the names of witnesses involved in fixing the Deputy President.
- The Gatundu South MP has repeatedly said he was among those who coached witnesses appearing before the commissions of inquiry into the violence (Waki) and the electoral disputes (Kriegler).
- Mr Kuria spoke on a live Citizen TV show, together with Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa, three months after he impolitely left a live interview at the same station in a disagreement over a video clip the host wanted to play.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria says he is sceptical about Cord leader Raila Odinga’s conditional offer to testify in defence of Deputy President William Ruto because he has a history of "not standing up" for his people.
Mr Kuria argued Mr Odinga cannot be trusted to testify in Mr Ruto’s ICC case because he did not defend those "he had conspired with in the failed 1982 coup".
“Do you know why I am sceptical (of his offer)? Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka, Private Pancras Oteyo Okumu, who were allegedly, even by (the book Raila Odinga: An Enigma in Kenyan Politics)¸ working with Raila in the 1982 coup attempt, he never stood up for them, they were hanged,” he said when he appeared on a prime time show on Citizen TV on Tuesday night.
He was referring to the 1982 incident during the Daniel arap Moi era when junior Air Force soldiers failed to compel military pilots to drop bombs on State House in Nairobi. Twelve people, including Ochuka and Okumu, were hanged for it.
PERIPHERAL ROLE
The biography Mr Kuria cited was written by Nigerian Babafemi Badejo and indicates that Mr Odinga had a hand in the coup attempt.
However, in Mr Odinga’s own book Flames of Freedom¸ he admits he played a “peripheral role”, saying he advocated for change but denied pursuing it through violence.
“We had been quietly engaged in operations designed to educate and mobilise the people in order to bring about the necessary and desired changes in our society — not through violence but through popular mass action,” he wrote in the book, published in 2013.
“The publication of a biography of me in 2006, where the writer intimated a peripheral role for me in the coup attempt, caused a vindictive outcry — indicating that freedom of speech is, at the time I tell this, my story, as shackled as ever in our country,” Mr Odinga said.
The Cord leader issued a statement on Monday in which he said he was willing to testify for Mr Ruto as long as President Uhuru Kenyatta orders his close allies to disclose the names of witnesses involved in fixing the Deputy President.
Mr Ruto is accused of being an indirect co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity for murder, forced deportation and rape of people during the 2008 post-election violence.
At the time, Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga were in the same party, ODM, as the former prime minister vied for the presidency against Mr Mwai Kibaki.
Mr Kuria has repeatedly said he was among those who coached witnesses appearing before the commissions of inquiry into the violence (Waki) and the electoral disputes (Kriegler).
“It was very simple. This was a political contest between PNU and ODM. ODM was procuring witnesses and PNU was procuring witnesses.
“I told them (witnesses) to go and tell them (commissions) ODM are very bad people. We won the elections and they couldn’t even allow us to vote in their areas and they even caused violence in their own areas.…”
“It was to propagate that line of thought…that PNU won fairly….and that ODM did not win,” he argued in the live TV show.
STORM OUT OF INTERVIEW
It is thought the ICC used the same witnesses in the criminal case facing Mr Ruto and journalist Joshua arap Sang. But even Mr Kuria himself is not sure about that but insists “I am as curious as you are” to clear his conscience.
Mr Kuria spoke on a live Citizen TV show, together with Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa, three months after he impolitely left a live interview at the same station in a disagreement over a video clip the host wanted to play.
On Tuesday, Citizen TV said he was returning “voluntarily”.
On Tuesday night, the MP appeared calm, the opposite of the temperamental man who embarrassed the same host on July 13.
He even apologised to Mr Ruto and Mr Sang, though it is not yet clear whether the ICC used Waki and Kriegler witnesses.
At one time, Mr Wamalwa asked Mr Kuria to declare the hidden reasons behind his admission to the fixing claims, but the Gatundu South MP responded by quoting the biblical book of Philippians, the 11th book describing the true gospel of God.
While he has been accused of using the ICC to paper over cracks within the ruling coalition partners, Mr Kuria claims he has been vilified in the Rift Valley (where Mr Ruto comes from) and blamed by some people in central Kenya (where President Uhuru Kenyatta comes from).
