THE HAGUE, Feb 19 – Judges at the International Criminal Court said Friday they wanted more information from the prosecutor on his bid to open an investigation into the deadly violence that followed Kenya\’s 2007 elections.
Judges have asked prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to provide "clarification and additional information in the process of assessing whether or not to authorise" a full investigation, a court statement said.
The new data should be filed by March 3.
The prosecutor in November asked judges to allow a full-scale probe of the violence in which 1,500 people were killed after opposition chief Raila Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of voter fraud.
Moreno-Ocampo said at the time he would focus on "those who bear the greatest responsibility, those who organised, planned and supported the attacks" in which thousands of people were injured and about 300,000 internally displaced.
These acts constituted crimes against humanity, said the prosecutor, who has been conducting a preliminary investigation of the events since February 2008.
The court said it wanted the prosecutor to demonstrate the link between the events on the one hand, and "a policy of a state or one or more organisations" on the other.
It also wanted more detail on the specific incidents and individuals to be probed, as well as the status of any domestic investigations.
Kenya has yet to act on the recommendation of its own inquiry that a special tribunal be set up to probe the violence.
The ICC, the world\’s only permanent independent tribunal to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, began work in The Hague in 2002. It can only try cases when countries are unwilling or unable to do so.
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