US, Britain ban Kenyan minister

2005-10-26 17:11

Nairobi - The United States has joined Britain in banning from its soil a senior Kenyan cabinet minister close to President Mwai Kibaki over alleged ties to corruption, said officials on Wednesday.

He said two months after strongly suggesting that transport minister Chris Murungaru would not be welcome on US territory, the country's embassy in Nairobi informed the official of his banning in a notice last week.

He said: "The action taken by the American government denying me entry into the US does not in the least come as a surprise to me."

He accused the US of signing on to an alleged British vendetta against him.

Partisan politics

Murungaru said: "It has been clear for some time now that Britain and America have been playing partisan politics.

"The objective is a regime change or in the very least to dictate who should stay in the cabinet and who should be removed."

Murungaru said he was preparing to fight the US ban in court with a legal challenge similar to one he had already filed in London seeking to overturn Britain's July decision.

The US embassy in Nairobi declined to comment on the matter, citing US privacy laws, but an embassy said the mission "does not deny" Murungaru's claim of being banned from the US.

Presidential proclamation

In August, a US diplomat said any application for a US visa filed by Murungaru would be reviewed under a presidential proclamation that allowed Washington to deny entry to foreign officials suspected of large-scale graft.

At the time, and again on Wednesday, the diplomat said "the US has invoked the particulars of this presidential proclamation a number of times in a number of countries, including Kenya".

Britain revoked Murungaru's visa on July 27, citing immigration laws that blocked the arrival of individuals convicted or suspected of serious crime, including corruption, and notified major airlines of its step.

- AFP