The High Court in Kenya has given the go ahead for a peasant farmer, Amos Weru Murigu, to sue British American Tobacco following the loss of his left leg to a condition he claims was caused by years of smoking the company's cigarettes.

The newspaper Nation reports the case will be the first tobacco-related health suit in Kenya and could open a floodgates for similar claims. Murigu contends that he was diagnosed as suffering from peripheral vascular disease which resulted from high poison levels in his blood and gangrene. BAT wants the case struck out as time barred in law. It says that its products contain nicotine but denies that its products contain substances that are injurious to health when consumed at the levels found in cigarettes. (pi)