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III. Government Prosecutions of “Priority” Cases andOther Serious Crimes: A FailureHad Kenyan decision-makers truly intended to rely on the ICC or the proposed specialtribunal to prosecute some election-related crimes, that would still not have explainedaway the striking absence of progress of cases in the ordinary courts.While some cases crept forward in the ordinary courts, most never reached the courts at all.These included most of the government’s “priority cases,” in which the authorities werenever able to identify or arrest suspects. No one has ever been arrested in the killings ofNahashon Mburu or District Irrigation officer Charles Keittany Korir, despite claims fromformer Police Commissioner Hussein Ali in March 2008 that investigations were complete“pending the arrest of suspects.” 94 Nor was anyone arrested in the burning of a house inNaivasha that killed 19 people; according to police, the house was burned by a mob andno witnesses were able to identify individual suspects. 95Human Rights Watch conducted research into the prosecution of 76 cases that did reachthe courts, most of them high-profile cases and cases involving serious crimes, in order todetermine why so few of these cases resulted in convictions. The following sectiondiscusses the outcomes in some of these cases. Of these 76 cases, not one demonstratesany attempt to investigate those responsible for organizing and directing the violence,which should have been a top priority. None of the many local politicians suspected in theviolence have been successfully prosecuted.94 Cyrus Ombati, “Kenya: Police Probe 9,000 Post-Election Violence Cases,” The Standard (Nairobi), March 21, 2008,http://allafrica.com/stories/200803201131.html (accessed September 13, 2011). In the Keittany Korir case, the March 2011Department of Public Prosecutions report states, “The only identifying witness, Irene Korir Cheruto, has not recorded herstatement due to resistance from her cousin, Mr. Japheth Tipis Cherotich, who vide his letter dated April 12, 2008, requestedthat the witness be allowed time to recover from the trauma.”“A Progress Report to the Hon. Attorney General 2011,” March2011, http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1062628.pdf, p. 32, with reference to Molo Cr. 711/34/08.95 Human Rights Watch interview with police official, Naivasha, May 23, 2011. The police case file number is Naivasha caseNo.764/41/08. This incident forms one part of the basis for charges sought by the ICC prosecutor against Francis Muthaura,Uhuru Kenyatta, and Mohammed Hussein Ali; see Prosecutor v. Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, andMohammed Hussein Ali, “Document Containing the Charges,” August 19, ICC-01/09-02/11, 2011, http://www.icccpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc1207443.pdf(accessed September 23, 2011), para. 70.29 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | DECEMBER 2011