NAIROBI – In an extraordinary public statement only days before Kenya’s high-tension national election, the chief justice Wednesday said he had received a letter warning of dire consequences if the judiciary doesn’t allow a top candidate indicted by the International Criminal Court to run.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga also revealed that an immigration officer at Nairobi’s airport tried to prevent him from traveling to Tanzania on Tuesday, which Mutunga said was a likely a political act.
Kenyans will go to the ballot box on March 4 for the first time since a flawed presidential election in late 2007 devolved into mass violence that killed more than 1,000 people.
Threats are circulating. A letter dated Feb. 13 addressed to judges and ambassadors said that the judiciary should not prevent Uhuru Kenyatta — one of two top candidates for president — from running for office. The letter began circulating just before Kenya’s High Court last week ruled that it had no jurisdiction to determine whether Kenyatta, the deputy prime minister, and former minister William Ruto — Kenyatta’s running mate — can run for the country’s top offices.
The two face crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court for allegedly orchestrating violence after Kenya’s 2007 election.
The Feb. 13 letter said that if Kenyatta is stopped from running, judges and ambassadors should “buy your own coffins and graves. We will cut off your heads and feed them on wild animals. . . . We are tired of being bullied by America, Britain and the European Union. We know your boss the chief Justice is a stooge of the American.”
The letter is attributed to the Mungiki — a powerful Kenyan gang — but the veracity of the letter has not been confirmed.
Mutunga said the letter and the airport incident were indicative of a pattern of emerging harassment against him and other judges. He said that at least five judges have been attacked in recent days, with some attacks involving gun violence.