Omar hits at Ruto as Annan renews calls for tribunal

By Standard Team

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) wants Eldoret North MP William Ruto investigated for alleged criminal exposure of Witness Protection Interventions.

The call was made by a commissioner of the rights body, Mr Hassan Omar at a press conference as the Kofi Annan team renewed calls for the establishment of a local tribunal to try post-elections violence suspects (see separate story).

Yesterday, two KNCHR commissioners made the call as they confirmed the commission had placed potential post elections violence witnesses in its safe houses in Nairobi.

Eldoret North MP William Ruto, Belgut MP Charles Keter and Ainamoi MP Benjamin Langat during a fund drive at Belgut constituency, yesterday.

The commission also called for the arrest of the two witnesses who claimed they were paid and housed by KNCHR to nail Ruto for confessing to making false statements and false pretences to it. "The criminal exposure of Witness Protection Interventions and actions are disturbing and could affect the current and future protection of deserving Kenyans," Omar said in a statement he read on behalf of the commission at their Nairobi offices.

But even as the Omar countered Ruto’s interventions, seven MPs from Rift Valley called for the disbandment of the commission for alleged coaching and bribing of the 2007 post-election violence witnesses.

The MPs, who were at a rally attended by Ruto in Kericho, said the Government should disband the institution, as their report regarding the post election violence was wanting.

Speaking at a fundraiser in Belgut where he was the chief guest, Ruto said "schemes by KNCHR and Commissioner Omar to malign and scheme for my downfall will not succeed."

"I ask God to forgive the Commission and Omar Hassan for his alleged coaching of witnesses as they do not know what they were doing," he said.

He said he was surprised that the commission has given a new meaning of witness protection to mean bribery and coaching witnesses to incriminate others.

Ruto defended himself from the accusations levelled against him by KNCHR report, saying nobody planned the violence that rocked the country after President Kibaki was declared the winner of the 2007 presidential polls. MPs Charles Keter of Belgut constituency, Joshua Kutuny (Cherangany) and Zakayo Cheruiyot (Kuresoi) said revelations by two witnesses that they were paid to incriminate Ruto was enough evidence to disband the commission.

Other MPs who accompanied Ruto were Benjamin Langat (Ainamoi), Lucas Chepkitony (Keiyo North), Jackson Kiptanui (Keiyo South) and Luka Kigen (Rongai).

Keter challenged Omar and KNCHR to come clean and tell Kenyans the truth of what he knows after he was named by some of the witnesses for coaching them to implicate Ruto. He called on the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moren-Ocampo to launch fresh investigations into the violence, saying KNCHR report and the report of Justice Philip Waki-led commission on the violence are not credible.

But speaking at the commission’s offices in Nairobi, Omar said Ken Braziz Wekesa and William Kipkemboi Rono approached the commission on their own volition in January 2010 after being referred to it by credible institutions.

"In its mandate to protect potential witnesses of post-election violence, the commission placed them under a protection mechanism as part of its human rights mandate, specifically because they claimed at the time that their lives were in danger," Hassan said.

He said the commission came up with mechanism in January 2010 to fill the vacuum of the lack of such a system in Kenya, which the Government recently established as Witness Protection Programme under the Witness Protection Amendment Act (2009).

The commissioner, however, said that the ICC had excluded Wekesa and Rono from their list of potential witnesses and that KNCHR had indicated to them their protection programme would end in January 2011.

Omar said the KNCHR conducts the witness protection interventions according to international best practices and thus the commission’s move to take good care of the two.

"The remarks by the Eldoret North MP, Hon William Ruto, represent not only an act of impunity, but also scorched earth politics that seeks to destroy the reputation of individuals and institution," Omar said.

The statement comes after the two witnesses took journalists to their city safe houses. The two were among three witnesses who had early this week sworn affidavits disowning evidence allegedly procured in questionable circumstances by KNCHR and specifically Omar.

Ruto recorded a statement at the CID Headquarters on Thursday over allegedly doctored witness statements linking him to post-election violence and demanded that Hassan be investigated over his role.

The exchange between Ruto and KNCHR began after the MP returned from The Hague on Monday. Chief Justice Evans Gicheru appointed a three-judge bench to listen to a case filed by Ruto seeking to expunge his name from the KNCHR report.