Western envoys pressure Kenya over violence court

Reuters ^ | July 16, 2009 | Wangui Kanina

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Kenya should set up a special tribunal to try those behind last year's post-election bloodshed or let the International Criminal Court step in to restore public confidence, Western diplomats said on Thursday.

Kenya's coalition government is under pressure from Kenyans and foreign donors alike to punish those behind the violence, which was the worst in the nation's post-independence history, killing at least 1,300 people and displacing 300,000.

In a statement, 25 diplomatic missions said that if the government was unwilling or unable to set up a special tribunal, it should let the International Criminal Court (ICC) take over.

"A special tribunal will need ... significant international involvement, a strong witness protection system and autonomous funding provided by the Kenya government," said the statement read by Swedish Ambassador Anna Brandt.

Kenya's cabinet led by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga is split between those who want to establish the special court through parliament, and those who want the perpetrators tried at the ICC. ....

Crisis mediator Kofi Annan handed over a sealed envelope last week containing 10 names of suspects to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, causing panic in Kenya's political sphere.

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ICC prosecutor receives reports on Kenya vote violence - THE HAGUE (AFP) - The International Criminal Court's prosecutor has received reports from Kenya's attorney general on alleged crimes committed during violence after 2007 elections, his office said Thursday. The documents were received Tuesday "pursuant to the terms of an agreement" reached between Kenyan justice minister Mutula Kilonzo and the office of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on July 3, said a statement.

Some 1,500 people were killed in a matter of weeks following presidential polls in December 2007 in which the then opposition chief Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of having stolen the vote. Odinga is now prime minister under a power-sharing deal.