Kenya's attorney general eyes action against US

Wed Nov 4, 2009 5:29pm GMT

[-] Text [+]

By David Clarke

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's attorney general Amos Wako said on Wednesday he planned to take legal action against the United States because the reasons it gave for revoking his visa were defamatory.

The United States confirmed on Sunday it had issued Wako, who has been Kenya's top government lawyer since 1991, with a travel ban because he was considered an obstacle to the fight against corruption in east Africa's biggest economy.

"In view of the reasons given, which are clearly defamatory, it is my intention to seek legal advice with a view of instituting legal proceedings in the United States of America.

"I want to take the war there, in the United States of America," he told a news conference

Ending a culture of impunity in a country where corruption is almost endemic is seen by international donors has a crucial step towards avoiding a repeat of last year's post-election violence at the next presidential election in 2012.

Wako has been criticised for failing to prosecute the perpetrators of the post-election violence that killed at least 1,300 people, and for not nailing the architects of several audacious corruption scams worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wako said the letter he had received revoking his visa accused him of "corrupt actions which have adversely affected the national interests of the United States of America".

Wako defended his record, saying he had consistently been a driver for reform within government, even during difficult times, and that the U.S. decision had been made in "bad faith". Continued...

View article on single page

<p>KENYA'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL AMOS WAKO ADDRESSES THE OPENING SESSION OF THE JUDICIAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE GOLDENBERG SCANDAL IN NAIROBI. REUTERS/File</p>

AFRICA BLOGS

Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) welcomes Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak as he arrives to attend a meeting involving five Arab states in Tripoli June 28, 2010. REUTERS/Stringer

Will 2012 see more strong men of Africa leave office?

There are many reasons for being angry with Africa ’s strong men, whose autocratic ways have thrust some African countries back into the eye of the storm and threatened to undo the democratic gains in other parts of the continent of the past decades. Blog

Kenyan troops patrol the Garrisa airstrip October 18, 2011. Al Qaeda-linked militants prepared to defend a south Somali town on Tuesday from advancing Kenyan and government troops, while a suicide car bomb killed six people in Mogadishu during a visit by a Kenyan minister. REUTERS/Gregory Olando

Operation Somalia: The U.S., Ethiopia and now Kenya

Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes. Blog

New recruits belonging to Somalia's al-Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebel group march during a passing out parade at a military training base in Afgoye, west of the capital Mogadishu February 17, 2011. REUTERS/Feisal Omar

Could Islamist rebels undermine change in Africa?

Creeping from the periphery in Africa’s east and west, Islamist militant groups now pose serious security challenges to key countries and potentially even a threat to the continent’s new success. Blog

A disabled Somali refugee child crawls from their makeshift house at the Ifo camp near Daadab, about 80km (50 miles) from Liboi on the border with Somalia in north-eastern Kenya, February 4, 2009. The growing flow of Somalis fleeing conflict at home has led to overcrowding in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and the United Nations expects the influx to continue, an official said. REUTERS/Noor Khamis

The children of Dadaab: Life through the lens

Through my video “The children of Dadaab: Life through the Lens” I wanted to tell the story of the Somali children living in Kenya’s Dadaab. Living in the world’s largest refugee camp, they are the ones bearing the brunt of Africa’s worst famine in sixty years. Blog

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (R) and his Equatorial Guinea counterpart Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo arrive for the opening of the Harare Agricultural Show, August 31, 2007. President Robert Mugabe on Friday imposed a new law on Zimbabwean businesses banning them from raising wages to keep pace with the world's highest inflation. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo

Who among the seven longest serving African leaders will be deposed next?

Several African leaders watching news of the death of Africa ’s longest serving leader are wondering who among them is next and how they will leave office. Blog

Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama jokes with photographers during a news conference in Sao Paulo September 16, 2011. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Was South Africa right to deny Dalai Lama a visa?

Given that China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and given the close relationship between Beijing and the ruling African National Congress, it didn’t come as a huge surprise that South Africa was in no hurry to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama. Blog

Latest AlertNet Crises News

Powered by Reuters AlertNet. AlertNet provides news, images and insight from the world's disasters and conflicts and is brought to you by Reuters Foundation.