SEVEN politicians including four ODM ministers are among over 3,000 individuals being pursued by investigators after Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere in August last year ordered the reopening of the 2007-08 post election violence files.
Investigations by The Star reveal one of those being pursued is a prominent member of the ODM elections think tank popularly known as the Pentagon.
There are two cabinet ministers from the Rift Valley, two ministers from Nyanza, an MP from Busia County and a Naivasha politician. It has also emerged that one of the Ocampo Six suspects is preparing to implicate Prime Minister Raila Odinga in the violence by adducing video evidence showing the ODM Leader urging the tenants not to vacate houses they seized from the rightful owners at Kiang'ombe in Kibera.
The suspect’s lawyers have armed themselves with edited video materials to be presented as exonerating evidence before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber next week.
Police Spokesman Erick Kiraithe confirmed fresh investigations into the post-election violence are going on but could not say exactly when they will be concluded. “It is true the Police Commissioner ordered the reopening of those cases in August last year. As to whether the people involved are prominent or not, it doesn’t matter to the police as crime is crime,” Kiraithe said.
He said those cases where investigations are concluded with water-tight evidence will be prosecuted immediately. “We are pursuing water-tight evidence on all the over 3,000 cases and we hope to take people to court,” he said.
The ICC has summoned Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, suspended Cabinet ministers William Ruto and Henry Kosgey, Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura, Postmaster General and former Commissioner of Police Hussein Ali, and Kass FM presenter Joshua arap Sang who were named by the Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo.
A technical committee appointed by Attorney General Amos Wako in 2008 to evaluate the post-election violence cases dismissed most of them. The only two cases presented to court were dismissed for lack of evidence.
The cases involved a police officer, who was allegedly caught on camera shooting a protester, and those who torched Kiambaa Church in Eldoret, killing 13 women and children.
Yesterday Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni said that PNU will demand the official release of the raw Kenya National Commission on Human Rights investigations draft report. “We want to pursue this matter to the furthest limit. And therefore we are demanding the release of the undoctored KNCHR report,” Kioni said.
He said PNU will pursue legal means to compel Justice Philip Waki to hand over to the police the list of names secretly given to Moreno Ocampo inside the famous brown envelope.“The list had 10 names. Now that we are preparing for local investigations and trials of these cases, what Waki hid in the list should be made public,” Kioni said. Kioni said there is a need to investigate the ODM Pentagon to ascertain their role in the post-election violence.
Raila, Deputy PM Musalia Mudavadi and ministers Charity Ngilu, Najib Balala, Joseph Nyaga and suspended minister William Ruto were members of the Pentagon.
The organ that drove Raila’s presidential campaign machinery in 2007 is said to have been responsible for ordering mass action in which hundreds of youths took to the streets in the affected regions.
One ODM Cabinet minister says that two of the Pentagon members put pressure on Raila to declare himself President and be sworn in as happened in the Ivory Cost recently.The members of the Pentagon pursued the idea at an ODM PG meeting at Orange House on December 30, 2007.
The move to reopen the post-election violence investigations is part of the government’s plan to signal to the world that something is being done to prosecute the perpetrators and deliver justice to the victims. According to the police source, the Ocampo Six will also be probed afresh.
Over 1,300 people were killed and 350,000 displaced as violence rocked the country’s six out of eight provinces. Kiraithe added that police can confirm that crimes were indeed committed and that action must be taken.“People were killed, raped, maimed some were shown on camera slashing and killing or burning houses. The police cannot pretend that nothing happened,” Kiraithe said. But neither the Police Commissioner nor the police service will be drawn into ongoing politics over the matter, Kiraithe said.
Police commanders in the affected regions have been ordered to reopen the cases and pursue those who may have fled after being notified of the investigations against them.
Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny yesterday said that it will be difficult for ODM to escape blame given the naming of the party chairman Henry Kosgey among the suspects.“We know that the party is just realising they have a lot to answer. In fact, how can they not when its chairman and deputy party leader are said to have been involved,” Kuttuny said.
The vocal legislator described as an attempt to carry out acts of espionage against the suspects the ODM decision to hire lawyers for Ruto, Kosgey and Sang.
This week Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba is expected to table a fresh bill seeking to initiate a local tribunal in Kenya.“This bill will be ready next week (this week). It will be a bill that passes the international threshold,” Namwamba said last week. He reiterated that ODM will not accept police investigations and said only outsourced credible prosecutors will be accepted.
The Star can reveal that the bill has borrowed a lot from three previous ones which failed after the House opposed them.
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