NAIROBI: Kenya’s critical presidential election was plunged into further disarray yesterday after the party of one of the leading candidates alleged vote-rigging and demanded that the count be halted. “We have evidence that the results we have received have been doctored,” Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s running mate, outgoing vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, told reporters, adding that in some cases “total votes cast exceeds the actual number of registered voters.” The rigging claims by Prime Minister Odinga’s supporters were immediately dismissed by Kenya’s electoral commission.
No amnesty for Islamists: Nigeria president
MAIDUGURI: Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said he was not ready to offer an amnesty to members of Islamist militant sect Boko Haram, brushing aside a proposal from the country’s most senior Muslim spiritual leader. Jonathan spoke on his first state trip to the northeastern region worst hit by the group’s more than three-year insurgency. “I cannot talk about amnesty with Boko Haram now until they come out and show themselves,” Jonathan told reporters in Yobe state capital Damaturu, a town regularly hit by the sect’s guerrilla-style bomb and gun attacks.
Srebrenica: No charges against Dutch officers
THE HAGUE: Prosecutors in the Netherlands said yesterday they will not pursue charges against three former Dutch commanders accused of failing to protect Bosnian Muslims during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Survivors of the massacre, the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II, had lodged a genocide and war crimes complaint against the officers. The Dutch prosecutors said there was “no evidence which obliges them to conduct further inquiries” against the former commanders.
Dancer charged over Bolshoi acid attack
MOSCOW: Russia yesterday charged a leading Bolshoi dancer with grievous bodily harm after he admitted ordering an assault on the famed ballet troupe’s chief while denying ever planning the use of acid. Police charged leading Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko and the suspected perpetrator and driver under a statute that risks seeing them jailed for up to 12 years. Dmitrichenko admitted he had been angered by Filin’s behaviour as artistic director, in a row that reportedly was triggered by the ballet chief’s refusal to let his dancer girlfriend take the star role in “Swan Lake”.
Bungling detective in Pistorius case quits
JOHANNESBURG: Hilton Botha, the detective who bungled investigations into the case against Paralympian sprinter Oscar Pistorius has quit the force, South African police said yesterday. “He resigned yesterday,” police spokesman Neville Malila said. Botha was one of the force’s most experienced detectives with a 22-year career as a policeman. During Pistorius’s bail hearing last month over the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, Botha’s evidence was picked apart by the defence.
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