A group of elderly Kenyans who say they were tortured by British officers during the suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s have taken their case to the High Court in London. The four claimants, three men and one woman in their 70s and 80s, are seeking compensation and a statement of regret for the treatment they suffered, including castration, torture, sexual abuse, forced labour and beatings. Lawyers for the group said their clients were subjected to "unspeakable acts of torture and abuse" at the hands of British officials.
"The treatment they endured has left them all with devastating and lifelong injuries," Martyn Day said before the case started on Thursday. "There is no doubt that endemic torture occurred in Kenya before independence."
The case, which is expected to last for two weeks, could open the door for claims from hundreds of other people who survived detention camps during the uprising, which saw Kenyans fighting against British rule in their country.
However, the British foreign ministry, which is being forced to release thousands of secret files from its former colonies, including Kenya, insists that Britain cannot be held legally liable. Robert Jay, a foreign ministry lawyer, admitted on Thursday that several Kenyans were "screened" - a system of interrogation to identify suspects - and tortured inside the detention camps.
However, he argued that Britain had not explicitly enacted a law that said prisoners were to be severely beaten or tortured, and it could not be held responsible for the abuses. Jay said the officers who ran the camps were under the jurisdiction of the colonial administration in Kenya, and that all its powers and liabilities had been legally passed to the Kenyan government on independence in 1963.
Al Jazeera - The Guardian - Timeline: Mau Mau Rebellion