IDPs give Wako notice to prosecute three ODM ministers

By Evelyn Kwamboka and Lucianne Limo

Pressure is mounting on Attorney General Amos Wako to prosecute three ODM ministers allied to Prime Minister Raila Odinga over post-election violence.

A lawyer claiming to represent IDPs, including landlords dispossessed of their houses in Kibera and Mathare slums, wants the AG to charge Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o, Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang’, Assistant Minister Elizabeth Ongoro and Utalii Ward Councillor Wilson Ochola.

Mr Njenga Mwangi says if the AG fails to prosecute the four within the next seven days he would institute a private prosecution on behalf of people displaced in these slums.

The seven-day notice given by the lawyer will expire a day before the first group of the ‘Ocampo Six’ appear formally before the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court at The Hague. That means the lawyer would be filing the suit against Raila allies on the same day that Eldoret North MP William Ruto and Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey appear at the ICC.

Mwangi says the complainants he represents are people who were targeted for attacks in Nairobi because they supported PNU.

Named in a report

"Our clients’ instructions are that the above named suspects in conjunction with other unknown persons as co-perpetrators, or in the alternative, as part of a group of persons, acting with a common purpose committed or contributed to the crimes," said the lawyer in the notice to the AG yesterday.

The lawyer, however, said he would not reveal the names of the complainants at this stage. Mwangi wants the AG to rely on the Rome Statute that the ICC uses or the Kenyan Penal Code.

The four were among more than 200 people named in a report prepared by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) that recommended further investigation over the post-election violence.

In the report, Ongoro allegedly supplied money for petrol that was used to burn property in Kijiji cha Chewa in Kasarani. Ochola is alleged to have paid Sh400 per day to arsonists who burnt houses belonging to PNU supporters.

The lawyer wants the leaders to be charged with murder, deportation or forcible transfer of populations constituting a crime against humanity, rape and other forms of sexual violence and other inhumane acts.

Alternatively, Mwangi said they be charged under the Penal Code with murder of civilian, attempted murder, threats to kill, conspiracy to murder, rape, causing grievous harm, unlawful wounding, intimidation and molestation, riotously demolishing buildings and forcible entry into lands and tenements.

Dismissed move

Incidentally, the crimes are similar to what ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had lined up against the six he wants tried at The Hague.

But Kajwang’ dismissed the lawyer’s move. "If he has evidence against me, let him go to court. We do not want busybodies yet Moreno-Ocampo was here and collected his evidence," said Kajwang’ on the telephone.

"I am telling him to go to court because I am not scared. He can even go to Ocampo if he so wishes."

ODM Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo questioned the intention of the lawyer. "If the lawyer has evidence against our members, then we will see him in court," he added.

Nyong’o could not be reached for comment and his aides who answered his phone said he was in a meeting.

Speaking in Dubai on Monday, the PM said he was not afraid to face charges if there was any evidence linking him to post-poll violence.