Jubilee MPs divided over Raila's testimony for Ruto in ICC case

Jubilee MPs divided over Raila's testimony for Ruto in ICC case

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Anti-evidence: Starehe MP Maina Kamanda, Kamukunji?s Yusuf Hassan and Ziwani MCA Millicent Mugadi at St Mary Magdalene Catholic Church, Nairobi, yesterday

BY DAVID MWERE

October 12, 2015

      

Jubilee MPs were yesterday divided over whether Cord leader Raila Odinga should testify for Deputy President William Ruto in his ICC case.

Starehe MP Maina Kamanda said Raila cannot be trusted.

The ODM leader has previously said he is ready to defend Ruto at the International Criminal Court.

“If you see a politician coming to see a fellow politician in hospital just know he doesn’t mean well. They could be praying for you to die for them to capitalise on the misfortune and we know such tricks,” Kamanda said during a fund raiser at Nairobi’s Ziwani Catholic Church.

URP MPs mainly from Rift Valley, led by Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen, have been urging Raila to support his former deputy party leader in ODM.

A URP MP, who did not want to go on the record, faulted his colleagues from Mt Kenya, accusing them of being “on the front line of everything in the coalition.”

“There is nothing as good as seeing the DP off the ICC hook, even if it means reaching out to the likes of Raila,” the MP said.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s allies from Mt Kenya region have, however, dismissed the request as irrelevant.

“I don’t think Raila’s evidence will save Ruto’s case at the ICC and if he challenges me, I will tell him so. He is part of a group that fixed Uhuru and Ruto to ensure the two do not ascend to the top seats in 2013,” Kamanda said.

He said the plan to fix the two was masterminded by Raila and his Cord colleagues Kalonzo Musyoka (then VP), then Justice minister Martha Karua, Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama and former Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo, who succeeded Karua in the Justice docket.

“We know Kalonzo did the fixing through his much famed and fake shuttle diplomacy exploits so he could succeed Kibaki, and Karua appointed Justice Philip Waki whose report ICC used,” Kamanda said.

Similar anti-Raila sentiments have been made by other TNA MPs, led by Tharaka Nithi Senator Kithure Kindiki, saying Raila is not useful in the DP’s case.

- See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/jubilee-mps-divided-over-railas-testimony-ruto-icc-case#sthash.UdejkiPA.dpuf