Photo/LAWRENCE MAINGI/ICC Mohamed Ibrahim Amin gives his testimony at the ICC on October 4, 2011.

A senior police officer on Tuesday blamed political pronouncements at the national vote tallying centre in Nairobi for the chaos that engulfed the country after release of presidential election results in December 2007.Mr Mohammed Ibrahim Amin, a career investigator, said even though the security organs were prepared to ensure peace, tensions were triggered by sharp disagreements between PNU and ODM politicians at the Kenya International Conference Centre (KICC) where the tallying centre was located.

Mr Amin, a senior assistant commissioner of police in charge of investigations at the CID headquarters, also blamed former chairman of the disbanded Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) Samuel Kivuitu, for remarking that the “results were being cooked”.
“People (were) agitating why the delay in announcing of results. Were they being stolen? Comments (were) made by senior officials of ECK that results were being cooked.
“There were also disagreements between the PNU and ODM luminaries at the KICC which people were watching on television,” said the officer with 22 years experience.
Appearing at the ICC as a second witness for former Police Commissioner Hussein Ali, he said: “In my view, the tensions were because of what people were seeing on the national TV, including comments by the ECK chairman that the results were being cooked.”
He said the violence started in north, south and central parts of the Rift Valley and quickly spread to other areas prompting the police to intervene. (SEE IN PICTURES: Kenya's blood and tears)