UK 'using obscure legal principle' to dismiss torture claims in colonial Kenya

Foreign Office says it is 'not liable for acts and omissions' of administration after alleged abuse of Mau Mau suspects

Afua Hirsch, legal affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 25 January 2010

The government is invoking an obscure legal principle to dismiss claims of torture and rape by the British colonial administration in Kenya, campaigners claimed.

The Foreign Office has said four elderly Kenyans alleging that they suffered serious physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the British during the Kenyan "emergency" of 1952 to 1960 should not be allowed to proceed with their claim because of the law of state succession.

The government argues it is "not liable for the acts and omissions of the Kenyan colonial administration", claiming the Kenyan government was now responsible for events that took place while Kenya was a British colony. But a cross-party group of MPs will this week publish an open letter demanding an apology and the creation of a welfare fund to help the alleged victims through old age.

Allegations that the British abused suspected Mau Mau fighters have continued since the Kenyan government lifted a 30-year ban on membership in 2003 ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/25/kenya-colonial-torture-mau-mau