Set in Kenya, the first ever War Crimes prosecution from an ex colony puts British imperial brutality and current corruption on trail.
A retired British GP, on vacation in Kenya, is arrested by leading opposition politician and charged with a War Crime relating to the death of a freedom fighter during the Mau Mau Emergency – the politician’s father, General Jembe. He is defended, reluctantly, by white Kenyan Leo Kane and British Asian War Crimes expert, Aliya Zain.
Through a series of flashbacks, Tom’s national service involvement in the Mau Mau period is slowly revealed. So too are the abuses of human rights in Kenya at the time, including the policy of getting the charismatic freedom fighter General Jembe ‘up country and cold’- out of the capital and dead. As the trial approaches, the relevance of the case to present day Kenyan politics and Commonwealth relationships become ever more clear. The Acting President of Kenya was himself a comrade of General Jembe. Leo Kane however has other things on his mind: The Charge, an annual rally across the bush which, in this its final year, he is determined to win with his two sons.
Siafu asks who decides who gets called a dead terrorist and who gets hailed as a martyred freedom fighter