Lawyers fault Cabinet decision on ICC names Kenya election violence suspects:Uhuru Kenyatta, right, and William Ruto, left, at a 2005 rally. They are among six Kenyans suspected of election violence. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty ImagesSix prominent Kenyans, including the son of the country's founding president Jomo Kenyatta, have been accused by the international criminal court of crimes against humanity for their roles in post-election violence three years ago.
Uhuru Kenyatta, the current finance minister and deputy prime minster, William Ruto, the most powerful politician in the Rift Valley province, where the worst violence occurred, and Francis Muthaura, the head of the civil service and a close ally of President Mwai Kibaki, were the highest-profile suspects named today by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court's chief prosecutor.
All three are alleged to have incited or facilitated ethnic attacks amid the chaos following the disputed poll in 2007, which saw at least 1,133 people killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.
Also named were the industrialisation minister, Henry Kosgey, the former head of police, Major General Mohammed Hussein Ali, and a radio journalist, Joshua Arap Sang. Moreno-Ocampo is presenting his cases in the pretrial chamber today with a request to judges to issue summonses against the six.
The case could be a defining moment for Kenya, where elite politicians and their allies have enjoyed near absolute impunity since independence for crimes ranging from corruption to murder. It will also drastically alter the country's political landscape: until now Ruto and Kenyatta have been regarded as presidential aspirants and the respective leaders of the Kalenjin and Kikiyu communities, which have supplied all of Kenya's president's to date.
Ruto is accused of inciting Kalenjin gangs to attack other communities, while Kenyatta is alleged to been "the focal point between Mungiki" – a mafia-like gang which carried out revenge attacks – "and the PNU party" of Kibaki.
While others were widely expected to be named as suspects Muthaura was not, and the allegations against him will be deeply damaging to Kibaki.
Moreno-Ocampo said yesterday he expects the suspects, who all deny any wrongdoing, to announce their intention to "surrender voluntarily" and warned them not to intimidate witnesses.
The case has caused panic at the highest level of government in recent days. On Monday, President Mwai Kibaki, whose controversial poll win sparked the violence, announced he would set up a special court to try suspects involved in the post-election violence – an apparent attempt to subvert the ICC intervention, since the failure to establish a local tribunal was the reason the Moreno-Ocampo stepped in.
Parliamentary allies of Ruto and Kenyatta have claimed that Moreno-Ocampo's case is political, while an MP from Ruto's province was today due to file a parliamentary motion to have Kenya withdraw from the international court.
But among ordinary citizens there is widespread support for the ICC, with a survey published today in one of the local papers today showed that 85% of Kenyans wanted the suspects taken to The Hague.
"These people always do whatever they like and nothing happens," said David Maina, a newspaper vendor in Nairobi, expressing a widely held view. "So let them now go with Ocampo."
While there have been concerns about possible violence and protest in the suspects' home regions, victims of the ethnic attacks who still live in those areas were eagerly awaiting the announcement this morning.
"I have been hoping for a long time this would happen," said Pastor Stephen Mburu, 46, who narrowly escaped when his church near Eldoret was burned to the ground by a mob of Kalenjin men, killing up to 35 Kikuyus, mostly women and children.
"This case can stop these things occurring again in the future."
That is one of the main aims of the ICC prosecuting team, with Moreno-Ocampo earlier pledging that Kenya would serve as "a world example on managing violence". Ethnic attacks around elections in 1992 and 1997 went unpunished.
