"In a statement to MPs, William Hague, foreign secretary, is expected to announce payments of £2,600 each to more than 5,000 survivors of the vast network of prison camps that the British authorities established across its colony during the bloody 1950s conflict: a total of about £13.9m.
After weeks of negotiations with lawyers representing three elderly former prisoners who brought a series of test cases in the high court in London, the government has agreed also to fund the construction of a memorial in Nairobi to Kenya's victims of colonial-era torture.
The settlement, predicted by the Guardian last month, is a historically significant moment, representing the first major compensation payment arising from official crimes committed as Britain withdrew from its empire. It is also the first governmental acknowledgment that such serious crimes were committed at that time."
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