Annan gives blacklist to ICC
2009-07-09 22:11
Nairobi - Former UN chief Kofi Annan handed the International Criminal Court the names of key suspects in Kenya's post-poll violence which he helped end last year, an African Union panel said on Thursday.
The list, which has not been made public and is believed to include top government officials, was drawn up by a Kenyan probe into the unrest triggered by the disputed 2007 presidential elections and handed to Annan last year.
"Combating impunity and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the post-election violence in Kenya is fundamental for the country's reform agenda," the African Union Panel of Eminent African Personalities said.
Annan, the chief broker in last year's power-sharing talks, had threatened to communicate the list to the ICC chief prosecutor should Kenya fail to set up its own special tribunal by March 1 2009.
Kenya's government had been granted more time to deliver, after some lawmakers arguing that such a court would be prone to political interference rejected the bill slated to create it.
In its statement, the AU panel said that the decision to send the list to the ICC was made following an agreement reached in Geneva earlier this month with a delegation from the Kenyan coalition government.
Some 1 500 people died in the violence sparked by accusations of then opposition leader Raila Odinga that President Mwai Kibaki stole the election.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," Annan was quoted as saying in the AU statement. "The people of Kenya want to see concrete progress on impunity."
Annan led weeks of mediation that yielded a power-sharing deal in which Kibaki kept his job and Odinga became prime minister.
- AFP