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Six men were accused in the International Criminal Court Wednesday of crimes against humanity for their role in the ethnic violence that tore apart Kenya following the December 2007 presidential election.
Henry Kosgey. (Thomas Mukoya/Reuters/File)
Henry Kosgey
A lower-profile figure than the other politicians and public servants on the ICC prosecutor’s list, Henry Kosgey is chairman of the Orange Democratic Movement, the political challenger to Kibaki’s Party of National Unity during the 2007 election. At the time, Mr. Kosgey, a chemist by training, was a national legislator whose constituency lies on one of the most volatile ethnic faultlines in Kenya: the southern Rift Valley. Since the election, he has been science and technology minister, and is currently industrialization minister. Like Ruto, Kosgey is a Kalenjin, the tribe which felt most keenly that Kibaki’s Kikuyus stole the 2007 election, and which first erupted into violence. The ICC prosecutor alleges that Kosgey was a “principal planner and organiser of crimes against PNU supporters.”
Kosgey has recently been mentioned in WikiLeaks cables regarding land he owns that was allegedly illegally acquired. He was briefly under investigation over the questionable importation of used cars.
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