Kenya: Activists Defy MPs On ICC's 'Dossier By UK'

HUMAN rights activists on Tuesday told off a Parliamentary committee for demanding they reveal information on their alleged involvement in a UK dossier tabled in Parliament.

Maina Kiai, Ndung'u Wainaina, John Githongo and Tom Mboya clashed with the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Foreign Relations leading to an adjournment of the meeting minutes after it began.

Committee chairman Adan Keynan instructed the four to give information on documents tabled in Parliament in March which revealed the United Kingdom's vested interests in the prosecution of four Kenyans by the ICC. The four refused and insisted that they had only been invited to provide information on their links with ICC. They said the clerk's office had not mentioned the issue of the UK dossier in the invitation letter.

Kiai, Wainaina, Githongo and Mboya said they would only respond to questions on their close ties with ICC witnesses, the financial supporters of the ICC and the relationship between their NGOs and the ICC. Kiai is the director of Info-Action, Wainaina heads the International Center for Policy and Conflict, Githongo is the Chief Executive Officer of the Inuka Kenya while Tom Mboya deputize Githongo at Inuka Kenya.

The committee instructed the clerk's office to furnish them with the UK dossier before new dates are set for another appearance before the committee. In the statement which the four had prepared to present to the MPs, the activists maintained that Parliament has no powers to demand any information on the links the NGOs may have with ICC.


Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201207200077.html