•Muhuri said it filed the petition on behalf of family members whose people disappeared and were executed by police and paramilitary units in Kenya.
•They claim the US government funding is fueling the alleged abuses and they demand answers.
Image: BRIAN OTIENO
A human rights lobby has sued the US government for failing to publish details of financial assistance it has given Kenya in the anti-terrorism drive since 2003.
The application under the Freedom of Information Act by Muslim for Human Rights says Kenyan security agents have abused their power by allegedly abducting and killing suspected terrorists or sympathizers.
The application was made on Thursday.
It said because ATPU, KDF and other police formations use resources from American tax dollars, the US government is complicit in the alleged atrocities.
Muhuri said it filed the petition on behalf of family members whose people disappeared and were executed by police and paramilitary units in Kenya.
They claim the US government funding is fueling the alleged abuses and they demand answers.
Muhuri is acting alongside its US partners-the New York University School of Law’s Global Justice Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
They complain the US has an arrangement with a secretive Kenyan paramilitary team that is allegedly implicated in multiple human rights cases of abuse, attributing the claim to various press reports.
They said the Paramilitary Rapid Response Team has perpetuated abuses with the support and guidance of the CIA and M16, Britain’s intelligence services, according to the reports.
The lobby said the CIA and M16-backed raids have led to the death of many people, including innocent civilians based on mistaken identity.
Omar Faraj, a butcher from Mombasa was killed during an anti-terror operation in 2012. He was allegedly mistaken for the target who face a kill or capture raid.
The lobby said the application target records related to abusive operations by US-backed units from January 1, 2003, to the present and specifically seek information about the killing of Faraj and the disappearances of numerous other people.
The target of the US funding of counter-terror initiatives from 2003 is significant because that is when the US government under President George Bush launched its famous Global War of Terror.
The war saw it invade Afghanistan in hot pursuit of Al Qaeda, a terror group that claimed responsibility for bombing the World Trade Center, occasioning the death of over 3000 people.
Marie Ramtu, Muhuri's executive director said though the US government had consistently championed human rights in Africa, it was absurd that it was not interested in pushing for the same counter-terror campaigns.
“The US has championed human rights and the protection of minority populations in Africa, yet it continues to behave paradoxically in counter-terrorism, particularly in Kenya, by funding killer squads,” she said.
Ramtu said the operations have made worse the marginalization of Muslims, giving state agents the free hand to abuse their rights.
Muhuri annexes a complaint by Saida Omar, a widow who says counter-terror officers stormed their house in February, ransacked it and took away her husband Bakari Mwanyota Mbwana.
She claims the officers were accompanied by two white men and said they were taking Mbwana to Nairobi for questioning but have not seen him since then.
“Those officers who arrested and put him incommunicado should accountable. I want relevant authorities in the US to tell me where my husband is,” the widow's statement said.
Provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act and the National Defense Authorization Act, known colloquially as the Leahy Law, prohibit the US government from funding units of foreign security forces engaged in gross human rights violations.
Central Intelligence Agency, however, is exempt from the provisions.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris