Kenyan MPs dispute poll findings

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The Kenyan president's party is meeting to discuss a controversial report on January's post-poll clashes a day after his prime minister's party rejected it.

The inquiry said some of the violence was planned and organised with the support of politicians and businessmen.

It called for an international tribunal to try those implicated.

A list of suspects is to be given to the International Criminal Court by the mediators of Kenya's power-sharing deal if it is not set up by mid December.

President Mwai Kibaki of the Party of National Unity (PNU) and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga, now prime minister, signed the agreement in February to end the crisis and formed a coalition government.

More than 1,500 people were killed in the violence that engulfed the country after December's elections and some 300,000 more fled their homes.

'Insufficient proof'

A commission of inquiry into the post-election violence, chaired by Justice Phillip Waki, found that in some areas, the violence was planned and organised with the support of politicians and businessmen.

When the report came out earlier this month, both Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga pledged to implement its recommendations.

But on Thursday, Mr Odinga's ODM party rejected the report, saying the evidence collected was not sufficient to meet the threshold of proof required for prosecution.

ODM said it would "resist and stop any rendition or surrender of Kenya citizens to a tribunal outside its territory".

"ODM finds the Waki report an abuse of the rule of natural justice," said Ababu Namwamba, the party's parliamentary group secretary.

Some PNU MPs have also censured the report, saying that it should not be implemented.

The commission of inquiry was appointed following recommendations by the international mediation team led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Mr Waki handed over the sealed list of suspects to Mr Annan, who is to hand it over to the ICC in The Hague if the court is not set up as agreed.

Human rights groups have warned that the government cannot afford to ignore the findings of the inquiry if it wants to avoid another blood-bath.