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SV Mr Poole sits at roadside with petition placards
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CU Mr Poole
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CU Placards "SIGN POOLE PETITION HERE"
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CU Petition for signing
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LV Traffic passes signing centre
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SV People sign at another centre, PAN to placards
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SV People sign at another centre
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NEARER V..DITTO
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LV DITTO
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SV DITTO
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SV Mr Poole talks to Tom Mboya
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SCU DITTO
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CU DITTO
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Initials LSW/S/AWS/ES



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: A petition to save Peter Poole - 29-year-old Kenya settler sentenced to hang for the October shooting of his African house-boy - was being circulated through Nairobi, Kenya, Aug 7-8, and Poole's father approached Kenya African National Union secretary Tom Mboya to solicit his support, Aug 8.

Mboya refused to sign the petition as such, but agreed to sign a declaration favouring abolition of the death penalty in Kenya for immediate submission to Governor Sir Patrick Rennison. He also said he was disturbed by rumours that some European employers were putting pressure on their African workers to sign the Poole petition. "It is not KANU's intention to ask Africans to refuse to sign the petition, but we must warn that no pressure, however remote, must be used to secure signatures from anybody".

So far, over 4,000 signatures - European, Asian, and African - have been obtained, a response Mr. Poole Senior called "heart-warming". It is hoped that up-country copies of the petition will return to Nairobi quickly, for scrutiny by the Governor and his Council of Ministers, who consider the Poole case Aug 10; since the Privy Council in London, UK, rejected Poole's appeal, the petition for clemency is his last chance of escaping the gallows.