8 July 2008
Nairobi — Eldoret North MP William Ruto and his Bureti counterpart Franklin Bett Monday distanced themselves from inciting mobile text messages (SMS) doing rounds in Eldoret and Kericho.
The two visited Safaricom headquarters Monday seeking to know the origin of the messages asking residents to disrupt the sittings of the Kriegler commission in Eldoret.
Safaricom later issued a statement saying their internal investigations had established that none of the inflammatory messages had come from the mobile phones of either of the two legislators.
"We have received an official request from the Kenya Police Liaison Office to assist the Criminal Investigations Department on this matter. We are working closely with them and hope to assist them to conclusively resolve this matter in the shortest time possible," said Mr Eddie Irungu, an officer at the firm.
The firm asked recipients of the offending message to forward them to number 333 to assist in the investigations.
Cause tension
Earlier, Mr Ruto, who is also the Agriculture minister, said by Monday morning he had received more than 200 responses from people who had received the SMS.
The message, which was written in Kiswahili had asked residents not to let the "enemy" report them to the commission. "It is shameless people like these who promote animosity. About 1,000 people have received the message and it is likely to cause tension," said Mr Ruto.
This is how hate messages were spread in the run-up to last year's General Election and after results of the presidential poll results were announced.
Last month, MPs supported a proposal to have a new law to regulate and monitor the mobile phone services industry to curb phone misuse.
Reported by Casper Waithaka, Kibiwott Koross and John Ngirachu
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