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BBC Summary of World Broadcasts

August 29, 1987, Saturday

SECTION: Part 4 The Middle East, Africa and Latin America; B. AFRICA ; ME/8659/B/1;

LENGTH: 271 words

HEADLINE: East Africa: In Brief;

Kenya: Foreign Ministry statement on ''self-appointed diplomat''

SOURCE: Excerpts KNA in English 1205 gmt 27 Aug 87

BODY: Nairobi, 27th August: The following is a full text from the Press Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

The controversial self-appointed ''diplomat'' Sammy Korir has presented himself as President Moi's personal envoy in Norway for several years, reports Norwegian newspaper 'Aftenposten'. Mr Korir has a flair for using other titles as Under-Secretary of State (Assistant Minister), General Manager and Corporate Vice-President. He has been charged with fraud in Norway on several occasions.

In 1980-81 Mr Korir was charged with grand embezzlement but the case was dropped when evidence got burnt in the office. Mr Korir reported that the cause of fire was a copying machine which had exploded. County official, Mr Sverre Oppdahl, in Karasjok reports that there were other reports against Mr Korir concerning money frauds.

Mr Korir is a former district officer for Makadara division in Nairobi. He left the civil service to become the director of the deregistered Kenya Private Education Services which operated along Kenyatta Avenue. He collected money from poor Kenya students promising to send them to overseas for further studies but instead he embezzled the funds. He was arrested and charged in a court of law for stealing 3,000 shillings belonging to the students. He jumped bail and fled to Oslo, Norway. The government would like to state quite clearly that whatever Mr Korir is doing in Norway has nothing to do with the Kenya government. Mr Korir knows pretty well that he is a wanted criminal in Kenya to answer fraud charges. The people of Norway must be very careful in dealing with him.