The United States will not share with Kenya the evidence that led to its designation of Kilome MP Harun Mwau as a drug kingpin.
The US Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration said Thursday that investigations against Mr Mwau and the findings the US has about him are “an internal matter” of America.
“This information will stay with us and so it is an internal matter. We believe what we have as evidence is required to protect the American people and assets in America,” he said during celebrations to mark the 235th anniversary of the US independence from the British at his Muthaiga residence in Nairobi.
The envoy instead urged the government to carry out its own independent investigation to come up with a strong case against him.
“Whatever Kenya does internally, we will leave it to its investigative and judicial system to do.”
He spoke even as the Kenya Police said they have no evidence to back up the US insistence that Mr Mwau is actively involved in the narcotics trade.
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere on Wednesday accused the US of being reluctant to share the evidence with the police despite blacklisting him.
On Tuesday, the US revealed that up to 10 United States government agencies had been watching the Kilome MP for years and have built a “foolproof” case against him.
In a teleconference with journalists in Nairobi, Adam Szubin, the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) in the US Department of Treasury, said his government slapped sanctions on Mr Mwau because of a container of cocaine found at Pepe container depot in 2004.
Mr Szubin said his government believes that both the depot and the container belong to Mr Mwau and that he had a “long standing reputation” in drug dealing.
But Mr Gration added that Mr Mwau’s case was only part of the challenges Kenya and the US have had over the years because “the designation of labelling him a drug kingpin had to do with that individual’s money and assets that are in the US and I don’t think it is going to affect our relations”.
US President Barack Obama listed Mr Mwau and Naima Mohamed, also known as Mama Leila, as drug kingpins, seizing their property in the US and slapping a range of sanctions against them.
The assets belonging to the two in the US have since been frozen and all Americans are banned from dealing with them.
However, there were no charges levelled against Mwau since the sanctions against him were “not criminal but civil.”
However, the Kilome legislator has protested the move challenging the US to bring the matter before the courts.
