NASA now turns to ICC after Maraga's ruling
Raila's team has made the earlier threat a reality.
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Nasa leader Raila Odinga’s adviser Mr Salim Lome said that the action by Nasa was prompted by then recent killing of five innocent Kenyans during the welcoming ceremony of Mr Odinga supporters when he arrived last week from the ten-fay tour in the United States.
"We call upon UNHCR, ICC to immediately begin collecting evidence which will identify atrocities that should be treated as international crimes," Mr Lome said.
This would be the second time Jubilee Party bigwigs Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto will be taken to the ICC in a decade, should Mr Odinga make true his intention to have the two questioned, even as he was opposed to the demand that the two be taken to Hague-based court in the 2008 skirmishes.
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“Remember we are handling criminals who were once at the ICC. Why would you kill innocent people for you to rule Kenya?” Mr Odinga posed last Sunday in Nairobi’s Baba Dogo estate after five people were butchered by unknown gunmen, a day to the Supreme Court’s ruling which upheld President Kenyatta’s victory.
"The killers must face the harshest penalties the law allows. But when the killings are ethnically targeted, they are even more heinous and rise to the level of crimes against humanity. As all Kenyans know, these are subject to prosecution by the International Criminal Court," Mr Odinga’s adviser added in a Wednesday statement.
Mr Odinga revealed that the deaths witnessed since the August 8 bungled polls was a warped scheme to portray the nationally-oriented opposition to Uhuru’s government as being only tribally motivated.
"Our supporters should continue exercising restraint in their protests and avoid any actions that could be used as a pretext for more killing. We will very shortly be announcing a list of self-protection measures," he said raising question of whether the Opposition will announce a resolve to use force to counter the lethal force repeatedly used by the police.
Despite the renewed political push and pull that have been occasioned by the unanimous Supreme Court ruling to uphold President Kenyatta’s victory, Uhuru’s communication team on Tuesday, speaking for the first time after the ruling on Monday, divulged that the president had intention to unite the nation.
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"The President would like to assure all Kenyans, those who voted for him and those who did not vote for him, that he will be their President," State House spokesman Mr Manoah Esipisu told reporters in Nairobi on Tuesday.
In the meantime Nasa leader is in the Tanzania’s Zanzibar Islands and expected back to Kenya on Thursday. It is not yet clear if the team has officially written to the ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on the matter.
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