Kofi Annan gives Kenya deadline

NAIROBI, Kenya, June 12 (UPI) -- Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told Kenyan leaders they must set up a tribunal by the end of August to deal with the violence after the elections.

Annan told the BBC he will give a sealed list of suspects to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if his deadline is not met.

President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the former opposition leader now in a power-sharing government, have urged the Kenyan legislature to authorize the tribunal. But legislators rejected the plan in March.

Annan helped broker the power-sharing arrangement after the December 2007 election. Violence in the country following the vote claimed hundreds of lives and forced an estimated 300,000 from their homes, some of them still living in camps.

Kibaki and Odinga have agreed to try to work with the legislature once more, Annan said.

"I think Kenya would be much better off with that trial taking place in their midst," he said. "They are collectively and individually responsible and they should work with the speaker and their fellow parliamentarians to establish the court for the sake of justice -- the victims deserve justice."