I will not record any statement on Moses Kuria's claims, Raila Odinga now says

Hon Raila Odinga will not be recording a statement with any State agency over the “disclosures” by Moses Kuria regarding the Kenyan cases at the ICC.

In a statement filed by his legal advisor, Hon Odinga said shall not intend to “indulge the idle curiosity of investigative agencies by recording a statement and reiterates that Kuria should be charged on his own confession of crimes against the International Crimes Act”.

Hon Odinga has taken this position after reading reports in sections of the media that say the Director of Public Prosecutions has asked the police to investigate the member for Gatundu South over the statement he made recently that he led in the solicitation for false witnesses and fabrication of testimony against the Deputy President Hon William Ruto at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

 According to the media reports, the police are also to question all people mentioned by Moses Kuria as also having "fixed" Hon Ruto.

 Hon Odinga says he finds it surprising that the Director of Public Prosecutions does not consider the confessions of Moses Kuria that he committed grave offenses against the Rome Statutes and the International Crimes Act to be sufficient to warrant his arrest and charge in a court of law.

“Paradoxically,” Raila says, “the DPP finds the confessions serious enough to warrant the use of scarce public resources in an investigative inquiry of innocent Kenyans that were subject of Kuria’s contrite outpouring.”

 It is a cardinal principle of constitutional law that investigative agencies must have "probable cause" before even contemplating to engage any person in a manner involving the employment of police powers.

 In the statement, Raila says that any cavalier "call and question" exercise as the one suggested by the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Kuria case is an unjustified exercise of state power and amounts to harassment of persons and a flagrant derogation of fundamental civil liberties, a habit that is taking deep roots in the Jubilee regime.

The CORD leader believes recording such a statement is only meant to further the “farce that the administration of justice and the rule of law in Kenya have become under the Jubilee administration. It is an exercise aimed at diverting attention from critical national issues”.