ICC prosecutor to request Kenya investigation

By David Clarke

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor will request that an investigation be opened into suspected crimes against humanity committed during Kenya's post-election violence in 2008.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo met President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Thursday and the prosecutor's decision means that the Kenyan leaders decided against referring the case themselves to the court in The Hague.

Moreno-Ocampo told a news conference he would ask ICC pre-trial judges in December to let him start an investigation, the route he has to follow if a government chooses not to refer suspected crimes committed in its country to The Hague.

Ethnic clashes after a disputed presidential election killed at least 1,300 people and uprooted more than 300,000, shattering Kenya's image as a stable, regional economic powerhouse.

"I consider the crimes committed in Kenya were crimes against humanity, therefore the gravity is there. So therefore I should proceed," Moreno-Ocampo told a joint news conference with Kibaki and Odinga in the capital Nairobi.

The 2002 Rome Treaty established the ICC, the world's first permanent court set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and other major human rights violations.

Kenya had promised to deal with the masterminds. But numerous attempts to kick-start the process have floundered and many Kenyans are skeptical powerful individuals will be arrested and charged because of widespread impunity among politicians.

"The hour of reckoning had to come at some point," said Ken Ouko, a sociologist at the University of Nairobi. "That now sort of nullifies the political merry-go-round we have been hearing."

KENYA TO COOPERATE

During a visit to Kenya in October, crisis mediator Kofi Annan warned that unless the masterminds of the killings were brought to book, there was a serious risk violence would erupt again at the next presidential election in 2012.

Annan handed over a list of the main suspects to Moreno-Ocampo in July. Political sources say it names cabinet ministers, members of parliament and businessmen. Moreno-Ocampo now hopes to investigate some of them.

"That is not what Kenyan politicians were banking on. They were probably hoping either for a way of stalling him or doing whatever," said Ouko. "If they succeed in taking him round and round, you can bet your dollars that 2012 will be worse."

Kibaki and Odinga said in a joint statement that Kenya remained committed both to cooperating with the ICC and to establishing a local judicial mechanism to prosecute those involved in the violence.

"We are ready to work with his court so that we don't see a repeat of what we saw last year," Odinga said.

The Standard newspaper said on Wednesday that Kibaki and Odinga agreed after meetings to let Moreno-Ocampo pursue the second option -- to cushion themselves from any backlash.