Friday, April 6, 2012

Arrest Ruto, Kiraitu for incitement, says LSK


E-mailPrintPDF
Share/Save/Bookmark
THE LSK has given the offices of the Attorney General and Director Public Prosecutions a 30-day notice to arrest and prefer criminal charges against Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi and Eldoret North MP William Ruto. The Society is accusing the two for “organising” the public into ethnic blocks and “whipping” up ethnic emotions with a view to coming up with strategies to either delay, interfere or hinder the ICC process by creating chaos.
In a terse statement issued yesterday, LSK chairman Eric Mutua threatened to institute private criminal prosecutions against the two if the Attorney General Githu Muigai and Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko fail to act. Mutua said the LSK has been following the political utterances of the two politicians on the ICC on the Kenyan situation and is of the opinion that certain offenses may have been committed. “Taking into account the stage in which the ICC process has reached and having gathered and interrogated the public statements and actions of the two, the LSK has formed an opinion that offences have been committed,” Mutua said.
Two weeks ago, a meeting bringing together the Gema communities from central Kenya was held at Jumuia Conference Centre Limuru which endorsed Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta as the region's presidential candidate. The meeting also resolved to collect two million signatures to petition the UN General Assembly to prevail upon the ICC to delay the trial of the four Kenyans accused of international crimes until after the general election planned for March next year.
While introducing the topic to postpone the trial, Murungi said any court has a jurisdiction to delay a case before it in case such an application is made before it. “We can argue that Uhuru is in a political hospital, and can apply for an adjournment until he comes out of his hospital. The trial should not be made in such a rush as to deny him (Kenyatta) his fundamental rights to be elected or the same right denied to Kenyans to elect a president of their choice,” Kiraitu said.
The minister said the ICC case is a political case which requires a political solution. “There are people who know how powerful the Uhuru is and there are efforts being employed to make sure his name is not on the ballot paper come 2013. As GEMA, it is time we supported one national leader who will lead us from the front!” Ruto was on Tuesday endorsed as the presidential candidate and leader of the Kamatusa group at a meeting in Eldoret where the group also resolved to collect 3 million votes to lobby the UN to ask the ICC to delay the cases.
The meeting denied that the Kalenjins were involved in planning the post-election violence. “We were victims who suffered extensively but we have been turned into aggressors”, said the statement. In the statement yesterday, LSK said these utterances and actions are illegal under the National Cohesion and Integration Act and the International Crimes Act. “By organising tribes into Gema and Kamatusa and issuing public statements that ridicule, antagonise and belittle the ICC amounts to offences under the two laws,” Mutua said.

No comments:

Post a Comment