Nairobi — The International Criminal Court is closely monitoring the recent post-election violence in Kenya and is ready to intervene, subject to various conditions.

It can only be requested to do so by the Government and the UN Security Council and acceptance is subject to its own independent investigations into cases of alleged crimes against humanity. According to reports from The Hague, the court's seat, the ICC's intervention is subject to four conditions.

Hirondelle News Agency has quoted the special prosecutor as saying the first condition is that the permanent court only has a subsidiary jurisdiction, complementary to national criminal agencies.

The Government and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) have both threatened to appeal to the ICC.

ICC cannot intervene if a case referred to it is already the subject of an investigation by national jurisdictions or if the state decides not to prosecute or does not have the will or has no capacity to do so.

Only the most serious crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression are covered and they must have been committed after 2002 (date of entry into force of its Statute). Kenya signed the Statute in August 1999 and filed its instrument of ratification in March 2005. The reported attacks could qualify for crimes against humanity if they were perpetrated against precise ethnic groups.

"Kenya is a state party of the ICC and the office of the prosecutor follows all allegations of crimes within its jurisdiction. The statute of the ICC enables it to exercise its jurisdiction if a situation is submitted to the prosecutor by a state party or by the Security Council of the UN but it also allows it to exercise its jurisdiction under the terms of an investigation opened by the prosecutor by his own initiative," the office of the prosecutor said.

Kenya has been thrown into political turmoil that has degenerated into inter-ethnic violence, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

The ICC has formed special tribunals to prosecute people accused of crimes against humanity in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone.

But the tribunals have not prevented violence from being perpetrated against civilian populations throughout Africa.

Violence erupted in Kenya immediately after the December 27 presidential election results were announced, officially giving victory to President Mwai Kibaki. The results were rejected by ODM leader Raila Odinga, who claimed electoral fraud.

The violence has resulted in more than 600 deaths, according to official sources, but observers estimate that this figure could be higher. The UN says the violence has displaced about 250,000 people.