Court keeps Kenya minister’s name in violence probe
by alejandro on 12 Jun 2010 | Comments
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan judges on Friday blocked a bid by the country’s finance minister to remove his name from a report linking him to 2007-08 post-election violence, which killed hundreds and has led to international criminal probes.
A report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, a state-funded human rights body, implicated several businessmen and senior politicians, including Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, in post-election violence that killed over 1,300 people in 2008.
“The report is already in public domain and now a matter of public interest…. and the court therefore declined to expunge (Kenyatta’s) name,” high court judges Roselyn Wendoh and Abida Ali Aroni ruled in their judgement.
“(Kenyatta) was not given a fair hearing by the commission, but his rights do not override those of the public,” the judges said, without elaborating.
Kenyatta, a son of Kenya’s first president and also a deputy prime minister, sued the rights body to try to clear his name by getting it removed from the report, entitled “On the Brink of Precipice: A Human rights Account of Kenya’s post-election violence”.
Higher Education Minister William Ruto, once a political ally of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, is also fighting a legal battle to remove his name from the report. His case is still in court.
Violence, often along tribal lines, erupted in the aftermath of the 2007 election, which was hotly contested by President Mwai Kibaki and Odinga.
The two later in 2008 struck a power-sharing deal but the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has said he will seek arrest warrants by the end of the year for up to six Kenyans from both sides of the violence.
source: Reuters
