Will Kenya Arrest Suspects for International Court?

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Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo left Kenya last week believing that he had a firm promise from the government to arrest and send to The Hague the suspects once they are indicted.

“Kenya will arrest them. And Kenya leaders expressed openly this (sic) cooperation…their role is to arrest the persons. So it’s clear the pace has been decided, and for me, that is the most important thing that happened in my trip,” Mr Ocampo said at the end of his tour.

Change of mind

However, senior government officials, in background briefings to reporters, were either evasive or appeared to reflect a change of mind in government. The government agreed to cooperate in the investigations, they said, not in arresting the indicted suspects.

On Thursday, the government refused to grant Mr Ocampo permission to investigate the masterminds and financiers of the chaos in which more than 1,000 people were killed and 600,000 displaced in ethnic violence. The law allows Mr Ocampo to start investigations without a country’s permission so long as he can get a court order.

Source: Allafrica