The International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said Wednesday he will summon six Kenyans whom he suspects of masterminding the 2007/08 post election violence in Kenya.
Addressing a news conference at the Hague, Ocampo said Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and son of Kenya's founding leader Jomo Kenyatta, Industrialization Minister Henry Kosgey, former Higher Education Minister William Ruto and former police chief Mohammed Hussein Ali were behind the country's post election violence which killed over 1,300 people and displaced 650,000 others in 2007/08.
He said Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura and radio presenter Joshua Arap Sang will also be summoned for instigating the country's worst political violence in Kenya's 47 years of independence.
According to Ocampo, the six stand accused for crimes against humanity in what he calls an orchestrated campaign to displace, torture, persecute and kill civilians during Kenya's election crisis in 2007 and early 2008.
Ocampo said each of the six will be served with a court summons, but if they fail to turn up or if they attempt to hinder the investigation - for example by intimidating witnesses - Ocampo says he will request arrest warrants.
The former police chief Ali stands accused of unleashing police officers to shoot unarmed demonstrators in Western city of Kisumu, and Ruto is widely accused of instigating violence.
Ocampo started a formal probe in March 2010 into the 2008 post- election violence.
The East African nation has been struggling with the formation of a local tribunal after two failed attempts in parliament.
Foreign governments reiterate that the special tribunal is the key test of the commitment of the coalition government and the 10th parliament to the accord brokered by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, to end the violence and pave the way for the power-sharing agreement.
The ICC judges gave the prosecutor the go ahead to start investigations in March after his last December application. He had submitted a list of 20 prime politicians, government officers and businessmen he planned to investigate on their role in the violence.
An estimated 1,300 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in the weeks after the results of general elections held at the end of December on 2007 were disputed, sparking intra- communal unrest.
The former UN chief brokered a political settlement that resulted in the formation of a coalition government by the rival political parties in 2008.
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