The outlawed Mungiki sect has extended an olive branch to the Government and asked for negotiations.
The sect's leaders in Rift Valley Province expressed their willingness to meet the Parliamentary Select Committee on National Security and "be given a chance to defend ourselves and put the record straight."
In a statement issued in Nakuru, the sect decried the manner in which its members were being condemned and convicted before they got a fair hearing.
"Our members have been remanded and jailed on trumped up charges by the former and present regimes," the sect's Rift Valley coordinator Kimani Ruo said.
The sect argued that heaping murder charges on their members was not a solution, and asked for dialogue in finding the cause of problems afflicting the youth.
The statement was also signed by the Mungiki national organising secretary, Mr Njoroge Kamunya, Nairobi coordinator Kamau Mwatha and Nakuru coordinator Kamondo Karuri.
They called on the Government to compensate the 83 sect members who were recently freed by a Nairobi court for lack of evidence.
They condemned the murders of the perceived Mungiki defectors, saying those involved were "rogue Mungiki cartels comprising street preachers and herbalists fighting for supremacy and a bigger pay cheque from their masters."
They called for the arrest of the perpetrators of such killings and asked National Security minister Chris Murungaru to crack down on the "rogue Mungiki cartels".
The response follows Dr Murungaru's assurance that the fight against the illegal sect would be intensified.
The minister declared "total war" on the remaining sect members, saying the Government would "wipe out" the sect, as the amnesty extended to its members early last year had long expired.
However, the sect members yesterday expressed willingness to meet the parliamentary team on security, led by Embakasi MP David Mwenje, to defend themselves against the killing accusations.
"We are always willing to assist the Government, but we are being hunted down alongside criminals for crimes that we have not committed," they said, adding that they had reformed.