UK Calls for Prosecution of Offenders in Kenya’s Election Violence

British High Commissioner to Kenya Adam Wood said on Thursday perpetrators of the post-election violence in Kenya in which over 1,000 people died and over 300,000 displaced should not be granted amnesty and instead should be prosecuted according to the Kenyan law.

A cross section of Kenyan politicians especially from the Prime Minister’s Raila Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement party have in the past few weeks been calling for the release of hundreds of their supporters who are still in custody on suspicion that they were behind Kenya’s worst post-election violence.

Odinga minister has called for the release of his supporters arrested at the height of the violence in order for the nation to heal.

However, leaders from President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity have called for the prosecution of the suspects.

Addressing the press in Nairobi on Thursday, Wood said that there has been a culture of impunity in Kenya for a long time and that the prosecution of the suspects should prove to the rest of the world that the culture of impunity has come to an end following the formation of a power sharing government between Kibaki and Odinga.

However, he said the prosecution should be done speedily, objectively and across the board, adding that no sacred cows should be spared.

He said this was the position taken by Britain and other European Union countries.

He said thorough investigations should be carried out before the suspects are prosecuted.

Wood said the British government is willing to assist Kenya in holding an international investment conference in London so as to promote Kenya as a safe tourist and investment destination after the violence dented Kenya’s image internationally.

Source African Press Agency

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