Disregard KNCHR and Waki reports - Rift valley leaders tell ICC

BY VITALIS KIMUTAI

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been urged to conduct fresh and independent investigations into the post election violence.
This follows witnesses who had implicated politicians in the chaos confessing they gave false information to investigators.
Religious and political leaders in Rift Valley said it was sad that some people could sit down and hatch a plot to tarnish names of innocent individuals by linking them to the chaos.
They were led by Bishop Paul Leleito of the African Gospel Church and Bishop Patrice Chumba of the African Inland Church.
"That people who did not participate in any way in the post election skirmishes were named in various reports for political expediency and monetary gains is one of the saddest and unfortunate situations in this country," Leleito said.
Reports should be discardedChumba said the ICC should not use the Waki reports and that of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on post election violence to determine who should be questioned or prosecuted.
"It is now very clear that the witnesses were coached and the post election violence as we have always insisted was not pre-planned but spontaneous,’ Chumba said.
Eldoret South MP Mrs Peris Simam, Ainamoi MP Benjamin Langat, Bomet Mayor Leonard Barsumei and politician Farouk Kibet said the credibility of the two reports had been put into question and should be discarded.
Speaking separately but candidly to The Standard at a secret location in Nairobi and agreeing to be video taped, the witnesses said Mr Hassan Omar a Commissioner with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) had given them monetary support and paid for their apartments.
"We are being paid Sh 60,000 a month and each has an apartment which the KNCHR paid Sh 120,000 a month at an up market estate in Nairobi. The apartments are fully furnished," Said one of the witnesses.
Promised sh1.5m each
They said that they had been promised Sh 1.5 million each should they agree to be relocated to foreign countries in preparation to testify before the ICC against a politician from Rift Valley.
"Commissioner Hassan Omar had promised to take us to a foreign country where our families would be accommodated and education provided for free. We were told that we would be earning 4,000 USD a month," a witness revealed.
They said that the payments made to them by a Mr Samson Omondi working with Mr Omar was done in cash but they had to sign the vouchers against their names and provide their national Identity Card numbers.
One of the witnesses stated that he had been taken to Uganda where he allegedly stayed for six months under the care of KNCHR before returning to Kenya where he has been hold up in Nairobi while his family are at a rural town in Rift Valley

Eldoret North MP William Ruto [Picture by Moses Omusula/Standard]

Province.
"We wrote many affidavits but we kept changing them to suit the interests of the commission and we were told not to stick to our original statements as they would not be useful," They claimed.
Statements alleged to have been sent to the ICC by three other witnesses were done through the e-mail of one witness who has gone public.
Some of the hand written statements which The Standard has seen and which the authors have retracted were scanned and e-mailed to the ICC.
Eldoret North MP William Ruto who was named in the statements as having criss crossed Rift Valley inciting the people and had distributed arms to retired army generals and soldiers before the chaos.
MPs-Zakayo Cheruiyot, Fred Kapondi and Joshua Kutuny were alleged to have attended various meetings where the chaos were planned.
Glaring anomalyOne glaring anomaly in the statements is that leaders were mentioned as sitting MPs between 2005 and 2007 yet they had not been elected to parliament.
Former senior military officers according to the statements were gave orders to the youths who were fighting and who had allegedly been paid various amounts of money.
Some of the orders were allegedly given through a local vernacular FM stations at the height of the skirmishes yet at the time, the government had placed a gag order on radio stations.
One of the witnesses said his original statement had implicated the police in extra judicial killings and named particular officers who he had witnessed shooting people during the violence and that he had recorded such statements at the police headquarters.
But he claimed that he had been persuaded to drop the report and pursue the line of implicating politicians.
Many threats"I have received many threats as a result of the statements that I wrote and I stick by them to date as regards to the extra judicial killings by police officers. I gave the statement on that to the Waki team as well," the witness said.
One of the witness said the evidence given to the Waki Commission implicating individuals on the post election violence were motivated by the then fight between PNU and ODM politicians over control of government.
"We were well aware that no politician or individual planned or financed the post election violence that rocked parts of the country, even as we gave the evidence to the Waki Commission," He revealed.
He revealed that a prominent Nairobi lawyer who had been retained by key PNU politicians took statements from the witnesses even before they testified before the Waki Commission.
"The evidence we gave to the Waki Commission was done in camera as we were aware of the repercussions it could have on our security had we given it in public like others who testified," He stated.
He said that most of the witnesses who have been relocated had been PNU campaigners during the 2007 electioneering period.
At least 11 witnesses who had been spirited out of the country are hold up in a neighbouring country as they have not been transferred to the countries they had been promised following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Kenyan government and ICC.
He also confirmed that the witnesses had first been relocated to major towns in the country by various human rights organisations having links with the ICC and their upkeep catered for.
However, he said, most of the witnesses have come to realise that what they thought would be paradise for them would for long remain an elusive dream.
Lawyer Katwa Kigen representing Eldoret North MP William Ruto yesterday told The Standard that he had not seen the affidavits sworn by three witnesses who were under the protection of KNCHR.
"When the affidavits are brought to us, we shall analyse and see if they are of any value to us. We do not know the witnesses so far," Kigen said.
One of witnesses told The Standard that they had nothing to hide and would hand over the affidavits to the ICC if required to do so. The documents were drawn by Letangule and Company Advocates.