Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, a high-powered legal team based in Nairobi and London said they were working to ensure that the Mau Mau fighters are compensated for war crimes committedby the British.

    "There is no question that the Mau Mau have strong case against the British in terms of the terrible things that happened to them back in the 1950s. I am very pleased that the Kenyan people are giving their support to enable this case to be brought," said Martyn Day of Leigh Day and Co. Advocates, one of the London-based legal teams.

    Speaking during a news conference in Nairobi to launch the fund-raising for the ex-fighters legal fee, Day said there was overwhelming evidence to win the case, which will be filed in a London court on October 20 of this year.

    The Mau Mau, drawn largely from Kenya's biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, launched their rebellion against colonial rule in 1952, especially in the "white" highlands favored by settlers, waging war from the Aberdare and Mount Kenya forests.

    According to official figures, more than 11,000 rebels were killed, along with up to 100 Europeans and up to 2,000 African loyalists, many from the Kikuyu Home Guard.

    The ex-freedom fighters said they intended to sue the British government for an unspecified sum of money that will be used to pay reparations to survivors of British colonial brutality in Kenya.

    "We are primed and ready to go with the legal case; the only thing we are waiting for is our Kenyan team to find the funds to enable the case to be brought," Day told reporters.

    "We remain hopeful we can get the case off the ground here in the near future. There are many legal hurdles for us to overcome in the months ahead but I am optimistic that justice in the end will prevail," he said.

    Day is well known in Kenya for instituting a successful legal suit against the British on behalf of pastoralists from the country's northern Samburu district.

    In 2003, the case was settled out of court. Almost 7 million U.S. dollars were paid to cattle herders who had been injured in explosions caused by munitions abandoned on Samburu land by British soldiers who were on training exercises in Kenya, as well as to relatives of those killed by the blasts.

    The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) also has the British government in its crosshairs.

    "We are getting ready to file a reparations suit in the United Kingdom on behalf of more than 500 Mau Mau -- which we expect to commence towards the end of October this year," said KHRC Executive Director Wanjiku Miano.

    Miano said lawyers acting for the Mau Mau will argue that the atrocities committed by British forces in Kenya were in violation of all international protocols on war and constituted crimes against humanity.

    "Despite the scale and severity of these atrocities, both the British and successive African government in Kenya, including the present government, have refused to either acknowledge these barbaric abuses, or provide some relief to the survivors," said Miano.

    "The matters raised by the Mau Mau Reparations Project have enormous and invaluable potential to open new frontiers for human rights and the administration of justice in Kenya and the world," she added.

    The KHRC is struggling to raise 85,000 dollars required simply to file the case in London and so far, Mianos said the organization has so far raised 14,000 dollars.

    "We hope to raise the balance during a fund-raising dinner which will be held in Nairobi on June 2 this year. While its primary focus is the Mau Mau reparations suit, the dinner program is designed to highlight and explore the heroic struggles of all Kenyans for independence," she said.

    Miano said the Mau Mau would present their case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague if the KHRC's London suit did not succeed.

    The veterans, now old or ailing, complain they have been ignored by post-independence Kenyan governments and say recent precedent gives them hope that a suit against Britain may succeed.

    Britain has paid 5 million pounds in compensation to 1,300 Kenyans since 2002 for injuries caused by munitions said to have been left by its soldiers trained in Kenya.

    Some Kenyans say many of those claims were bogus and Britain was panicked into making the awards by publicity-savvy lawyers.

    But the fresh evidence of British conduct during Mau Mau may deepen anti-British sentiment and help the veterans' case.

    "The veterans are dying out very quickly, so retribution must be as fast as possible," said Kang'ethe Mungai of Kenya's human rights group Release Political Prisoners.

    The British embassy in Kenya says there will be no British comment on the matter until the suit is filed.

    Neither independence leader Jomo Kenyatta nor his successor Daniel arap Moi lifted the colonial-era ban on Mau Mau, arguing that venerating them would only stir enmity among non-Kikuyus.

    President Mwai Kibaki, a member of the Kikuyu tribe elected head of state in 2002, rescinded the ban in 2003.

    But the issue remains divisive in Kenya where some fought for Britain as "loyalists" and others for Mau Mau. Enditem