Wikileaks Details Why Amos Wako Was Banned From The US Soil

Secretary of States formally announced the suspension of the former AG Wako from entering the US over corruption links. While it’s not been made clear the details, Wikileaks cables happens to have all the tea as illustrated below in an intelligence briefing between the then US Ambassador Ranneberger and Whitehouse. It also appears that Wako’s visa revocation had been initiated in 2009.

Below is an excerpt of the classified file leaked on Wikileaks;

1. (C) Embassy is seeking a security advisory opinion under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Proclamation 7750, suspending the entry into the United States of Amos Sitswila Wako and members of his family. Wako was born in Kakamega, Western Province, Kenya on July 31, 1945. Post strongly believes Mr. Amos Wako has engaged in and benefited from public corruption in his capacity as Attorney General for the past 18 years by interference with judicial and other public processes, and that this corruption has had a serious adverse impact on U.S. national interest in the stability of democratic institutions in Kenya, U.S. foreign assistance goals and the international economic activities of U.S. businesses. The following provides information requested in ref a, paragraphs 26-28.

2. (C) Amos Wako has been Kenya,s Attorney General (AG) for the past 18 years. During this period, despite a string of major corruption scandals, he has not only failed to prosecute successfully a single senior governmental figure but he also has actively thwarted their prosecution. The Attorney General has been repeatedly accused by civil society groups as well as the head of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission, Justice Aaron Ringera, of failing to prosecute cases of official corruption. Others have noted the AG,s poor quality of legal advice to the government that helped to facilitate both the Anglo-Leasing and Goldenberg mega-scandals by lending his stamp of approval to fraudulent contracts that were the basis for stealing over a billion dollars from the Kenyan government. At the same time, in a pattern of supporting Kenya,s culture of impunity, Wako has been identified by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions in Kenya as &the chief obstacle to prosecuting anyone in authority for extrajudicial executions.8 Amos Wako has been AG since 1991, serving under Presidents Moi and Kibaki. He is married with two children.

3. (C) Wako,s corrupt practices have been investigated and documented in five reports. The first is the Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg Affair (October 2005), another initiative of the Kibaki administration to investigate a massive financial scam in the mid-1990s. The second is the Kenya National Assembly,s Public Accounts Committee,s report on the Anglo-Leasing scandal (March 2006), a public contracting scam which resulted in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to non-existent companies in Europe that were ostensibly to provide big ticket items for the GOK, including ships, passport equipment, etc. The third is the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission,s (KACC) status report to President Kibaki on a number of the Anglo-Leasing contracts (June 2006). Fourth is the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings or summary executions Mission to Kenya (February 2009) which discussed police killings and post-election violence. The fifth is the Report of the Commission to Investigate Post-Election Violence (Waki Report ) October 2008). Goldenberg Report.

You can read the rest of the report on Wako on Wikileaks here.