State House Nairobi/ File
The group led by Evans Gor Semelang’o handed over the petition at the president’s office on Wednesday morning claiming that they had been mentioned adversely after attending the controversial meeting at State House Nairobi, in November 2007.
They are seeking the publication of the names of the post election violence suspects named in the Waki report with the aim of clearing their names if they are part of the report.
They said that the Waki Commission that investigated the 2008 post election violence did not comply with the Commissions of Inquiries Act by failing to accord them a hearing.
Semelang’o confirmed that they attended the meeting as members of the Kibaki Tena campaign team but stressed they did not to discuss and plan violence.
Among the youth leaders who went to Harambee House to present the petition on Wednesday were Joseph Kioko, Semelang’o and Patrick Ngatia. (READ the petition here)
They said they wanted President Kibaki “to call for and receive the full record of the proceedings taken during the Commission of Inquiry on Post Election Violence (CIPEV) including the commission’s report and the full contents of the envelope handed over to chief mediator Kofi Annan.”
“So far we only know the names of six people… four whose cases have been confirmed when there are many other people who participated in the violence,” they said.
They said that they want to be in the clear with the law on leadership and integrity which is expected to be presented in Parliament for enactment.
“The continued insistence even by the ICC that we participated in a criminal meeting is causing us to suffer prejudice, we are not even at peace with our families and the situation needs to be changed,” said Ngatia outside Harambee House.
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has insisted that the meeting at State House and which is said to have been attended by former head of civil Service Francis Muthaura and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta was not for a youth marshal plan, but to plan retaliatory violence.
State House has on a number of occasions strongly rejected assertions by the International Criminal Court that meetings were held in the president’s official residence to plan revenge attacks in 2008 dismissing the claims as ‘mere rumours.’
“As we have stated in the past no such meetings took place at State House Nairobi and is indeed the product of the imagination of the so called anonymous prosecution witness,” a dispatch from State House in January said.
It however admitted there was a meeting at State House on November 26, 2007 but clarified that it was not attended by any Mungiki leader or members as alleged by the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in his evidence which was largely relied upon by the judges in confirming cases against Uhuru and Muthaura.
Muthaura and Kenyatta have been committed to a full trial alongside Eldoret North MP William Ruto and journalist Joshua arap Sang who are equally accused of committing crimes against humanity over the 2008 post election violence.
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