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The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Thursday he had asked judges to allow a formal probe of Kenya's 2007-08 post-election violence with a view to putting those responsible on trial.

"I have asked the judges of the International Criminal Court authorisation to investigate the violence that followed the elections in 2007," Luis Moreno-Ocampo told journalists in The Hague.

He had been conducting a preliminary investigation since February last year of the violence that followed presidential polls held on December 27, 2007 after opposition chief Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of voter fraud.

Some 1,500 people were killed and 300,000 displaced in a matter of weeks.

Moreno-Ocampo said there had been a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population," that constituted crimes against humanity such as rape, murder, deportation and forced displacement.

He intended presenting a limited number of cases to court against "those who bear the greatest responsibility, those who organised, planned and supported the attacks."

This is the first time that the prosecutor seeks to open an investigation on his own initiative -- one of three ways in which a case can come before the ICC.

He needs the judges' permission to do so.

Other cases before the court had either been referred by countries that have signed up to the court's founding Rome Statute or by the United Nations Security Council, as in the case of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.

The ICC has already assigned three judges to consider the prosecutor's request in the Kenyan matter.

The Kenyan government has yet to act on the recommendation of its own year-old inquiry that a special tribunal be set up to probe the violence.

Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said that Nairobi will help the ICC to investigate, but that it was committed to a "local solution."

The ICC, the world's only permanent independent tribunal to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, began work in The Hague in 2002.

It can only try cases when countries are either unwilling or unable to do so.

Moreno-Ocampo already announced in September his wish to pursue those "most responsible" for the violence.

In June, former UN chief Kofi Annan called on Kenya to set up a special court to try suspects, or have them face justice before the ICC.

Annan, the chief broker in Kenya's power-sharing talks which saw Odinga become prime minister and Kibaki remain president, sent the court a list of names of key suspects in July that is believed to include top government officials.