Washington, DC — Kenyans accused of responsibility for the violence which followed the 2007 elections must answer for their crimes in front of a judicial body, the top U.S. official responsible for policy on Africa has told AllAfrica.

In an exclusive interview, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson indicated that the Obama administration would not agree at the United Nations Security Council to Kenya's request that the pending trial of Kenyan leaders at the International Criminal Court (ICC) be deferred.

"Let me make it very clear that we are not in favor of… [a deferral]," he said. "It is time for that process of accountability through an agreed-upon legal mechanism to be established so that justice replaces impunity and violence.

"Accountability must be in a process that is open, legally responsible and binding."

Carson said the United States believed that "the only way to heal the wounds of the past and to create the environment for peace and stability in Kenya is for those individuals who are accused of having engaged in the post-electoral violence to answer to those crimes in front of a judicial body."

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has named six Kenyan leaders – three from each of two groups involved in the violence – as major perpetrators of ethnically-based "crimes against humanity," including rape, murder and land seizures in post election violence in 2007 and 2008.