Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks claims his leak of the Kroll report shifted the 2007 Kenya poll
By ANTONY KARANJA
The leaked Kroll report may have shifted the 2008 general elections in Kenya, an online whistleblowing activist claimed on Monday.
Julian Assange the most talked about man in the US media today is credited with leaking the report which highlighted massive looting of state coffers during the regime of former president Daniel Arap Moi.
Australian born Assange is the Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks a website that collects and posts highly classified documents and videos online. His website has sparked a heated debate on how much the public should know after classified Afghan war documents were posted on the site with the White House saying that this has a potential to harm America’s military.
In 2003, according to Mr Assange who was speaking in a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, the then newly elected government of Mwai Kibaki commissioned the Kroll investigation shortly after his election on an anti-corruption platform. The report was handed over to the Kenyan government in 2004 a fact that was confirmed in 2007 by the government spokesman Alfred Mutua. However Mr. Mutua dubbed the report as “incomplete and inaccurate and based on a lot of hearsay.”
Mr Assange said he went to Kenya in 2007 and was able to get hold of the report just prior to the December elections. He said that he released the report three days after Moi had announced his support of President Kibaki’s re-election bid.
This association between the two made it difficult for the Kibaki to release the damaging report and according to Assange it became “a dead albatross around president Kibaki’s neck.” Moi drummed up support for Kibaki in the Rift Valley area.
In October 2007, the then ODM presidential candidate Raila Odinga claimed that the Kroll report was being withheld by the government to bait Moi into backing President Kibaki for a second term.
The activist points out that details of the report however became front page news in the Guardian Newspaper in UK and became major news in other African countries.
Assange further claims that when the Kenyan TV discussed the report for almost twenty consecutive days, the vote shifted 10 points according to a Kenyan intelligence report and “that changed the results.”
Mr Mutua Kilonzo (right) narrates how he cheated death after taking illicit brew at Nairobi's Kibera slums, 25 July, 2010. At least 10 people died after taking the brew while scores of others became blind. PETERSON GITHAIGA|NATION
At least 11 people were confirmed dead and an unknown number left blind after consuming an illegal drink in Nairobi’s Kibera slum over the weekend.
Most of the victims were discovered dead in their houses on Sunday and during the day on Monday while four were confirmed to have died while undergoing treatment at Kenyatta National and Mbagathi District hospitals.
Dr Adung’o Ikol of KNH told reporters six people had been treated at the hospital and four of these had died while undergoing treatment there.
Four more victims were found in the slum Monday morning, one in the spot he called home under polythene sheets on a path in the slum.
An additional three who resided in bushes on a piece of land opposite the Department of Defence headquarters at Milimani also died; two on Sunday while the third was found dead Monday morning.
They were suspected to have bought the liquor at Kibera slums.
Dr Ikol said the victims died of methanol poisoning.
The doctor said methanol poisoning occurs when methanol is broken down into formic acid in the stomach, which then leads to blindness and eventually to death.
Victims are treated by being given ethanol, which prevents the conversion of methanol into the acid by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase produced by the liver and the brain.
“As little as 10 millilitres of methanol is harmful. The dead must have taken 100 millilitres or more,” said Dr Ikol.
The survivors said they had taken a drink referred to as ‘koroga’, which they said contains ingredients used to make a popular drink known as ‘Naps’ and marketed as a brandy.
Methanol is used as fuel or as a solvent in industries.
Caption: Baby Zahra, her mother and KQ officers soon after her birth aboard a Kenya Airways flight
Kenya Airways in flight crew found itself being called to extraneous duties as they assisted a woman passenger deliver a baby girl.
The woman developed labour pains during the KQ 317 flight from Dubai via Muscat to Nairobi on Thursday and the officers led by KQ Nurse Juliana Maithya had to create a makeshift delivery room in the aisle in the economy class to enable the woman deliver the baby once the plane landed.
The officers who also included Flight Purser Josephine Towett, flight attendants Oscar Heho, Mitchell Ongeso, Anthony Kuria and Muriithi, Captain Hamdan and First Officer Muiruri said both the baby and the mother were ‘doing fine’.
The Captain and First Officer waited for the baby to be born before disembarking.
Speaking at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenya Airways Chief Operating Officer Bram Stellar said this was the first time that such an event has occurred not only for the crew, but for Kenya Airways.
“It was already a packed flight from Muscat to Nairobi but passengers and crew were more than happy to make room for one extra person when the lady gave birth to a baby girl, whom we promptly named Zahra,” he said.
“Within 15 minutes the baby had been born. We are happy that the birth was normal and the mother and baby are fine,” he added.
