NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya has defended this week's unprecedented police raid on a major media group which brought a torrent of accusations from at home and abroad that President Mwai Kibaki's government was behaving like a dictatorship.
"We have actually committed no crime," Internal Security Minister John Michuki told a news conference late on Friday.
"The police are within the law."
In the most aggressive assault on media since Kenya's independence in 1963, at least 30 elite police and paramilitary commandos armed with AK-47s stormed the offices of the Standard Group's TV station and newspaper in the early hours of Thursday.
Amid a national uproar over the incident, Kenyan police justified their actions on the grounds that Standard journalists were taking bribes to write false stories and that there was a plot to incite ethnic hatred.
During the raids on Kenyan Television Network (KTN) and the Standard newspaper, police seized transmission equipment and computers. "The material contains serious matters detrimental to the security of this country," Michuki added.
The Standard group has ridiculed the accusations over bribery and threats to security, and plans to sue for damages.
Condemnation of Kenya's actions has poured in, with the latest coming from the U.S. government.
"Such acts of thuggery have no place in an open society and we call on the government of Kenya to cease its intimidation," said State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli.
Fallout from the raid has put more pressure on Kibaki, who was already reeling from graft scandals and an embarrassing defeat in a constitutional referendum at the end of last year.
Kibaki came to power in 2002 promising to usher in democratic reforms after the autocratic, 24-year rule of his predecessor Daniel arap Moi.
Michuki blamed the media for whipping up condemnation of Thursday's raid without examining the motives behind it.
"You have already decided that the government is guilty. You have been prejudiced and you give wrong conclusions to the public," Michuki said. "Read the constitution and tell us if the police were wrong in the eyes of the law."
