The British Government has applied to strike out claims of Kenyan victims of British Colonial torture on the grounds of “state succession”. 

The Government will be arguing that the liabilities of the Kenyan Colonial Administration were passed on the new Kenyan Government at independence in 1963.  The implication of the argument is that the current Kenyan Government, as the successor to the British Colonial Administration, is liable for the torture committed by the colonial regime.    

Leigh Day & Co has been instructed by the Kenya Human Rights Commission to represent Kenyans who were tortured during the brutal repression of “the Mau Mau rebellion” by the British Colonial Government in the 1950s and early 1960s.  On 23rd June 2009, the victims travelled 4,000 miles to London from rural Kenya in order to issue the claims at the High Court in person and to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister.

The claims are on behalf of men and women from different Kenyan communities who are representative of the wider community of thousands of Kenyans who were detained and tortured during the “Kenya Emergency” independence.  Detainees suspected of being members of, or sympathising with, the Mau Mau rebellion were subjected to unspeakable abuses including arbitrary killings, castrations, sexual abuse, forced labour, starvation and the systematic use of violence.  The facts have been painstakingly researched and documented by leading historians from Oxford and Harvard .

The surviving victims, many of whom had little or no involvement with the Mau Mau, have made it clear to the British Government that they seek first and foremost an acknowledgement that this wrong was committed. They also seek the establishment of a scheme to address the health and welfare needs of the wider community of victims who were tortured by the British Colonial Administration.

Ndiku Mutua, one of the claimants, said: “I was castrated and tortured whilst I was detained by British prison guards.  It devastated my life.  To be told that the British Government are claiming this is somehow Kenya’s responsibility is beyond belief.  I am not asking for much, I just want an acknowledgement of the torture I was subjected to so that some of my dignity is restored before I die.”

A group of leading human rights organisations, politicians and international lawyers will be writing to David Miliband to protest at the position the Government has adopted.  A further group of international legal experts will meet at a specially convened conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies in February 2010 to establish a clear legal strategy for defeating the Government’s strike out application.

Martyn Day, Senior Partner at Leigh Day & Co said today:  “It is deeply disappointing that the British Government is refusing to deal with the substance of this case.  To seek to pin the liability for British torture onto the Kenyan Government is an appalling stance for the Government to take and I fear it will seriously affect Britain’s reputation as a champion of human rights.  Our concern is that many of these elderly victims will die while this arcane legal point is being argued in the courts.”

For further information about this case, please contact Dan Leader on 020 7650 1247.