By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A Kenyan court on Wednesday struck out a claim for compensation brought before it by the families and victims of the August 1998 bombing of the United States embassy in the capital, Nairobi.
Dismissing the petition, the court held that there was not sufficient evidence to support the petitioners’ claim that the government had failed to act on prior intelligence about the attack.
Over 200 people, including 12 American nationals lost their lives in the attack while thousands of others were wounded.
A nearly simultaneous blast took place in front of the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
The presiding judge, Lawrence Mugambi said the petitioners had also alleged that there were known border and immigration failures, which paved way for the infiltration by dangerous elements that went undetected.
“The petitioners were required to demonstrate, on a balance of probability, that specific intelligence existed and that the government failed to act on it,” he said.
Mugambi agreed that the state must take “positive steps to prevent violations of the right to life”.
But he added that these “violations of constitutional rights against the state depended on proof of this primary fact”.
The United States government has already compensated relatives of its nationals who died or were injured in the blast in excess of $5 billion.
Local victims have decried the injustice. Mike Kitivo who is a member of a consortium of victims of the 1998 bomb blast, said they were “truly disheartened” by the judgement.
“For close to three decades, these men and women you’re seeing over here and elsewhere have been waiting for justice to be served. We are very disappointed,” he said.
The group said it will now turn to the Court of Appeal and the International Criminal Court of Justice.
