NAIROBI, Oct. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- Forty people have been charged in a Kenyan court on Monday with creating disturbances in western Kenyan city of Kisumu over the weekend in which four people were killed and dozens wounded.

    However, seven polytechnic students and five of their lecturers refused to plead to charges following chaos that rocked the lakeside city between police and youths who were trying to stop a political rally in support of a new Kenyan constitution.

    Kisumu Chief Magistrate Edwin Ongudi referred the matter to the High Court and released the students and their lecturers on bond.

    But the remaining denied charged of creating disturbances and were freed on bond pending the hearing on 12 November.

    Earlier on Monday, anti-riot police dispersed rioting students of the polytechnic who were protesting the weekend killing of a third-year civil engineering student during chaos that rocked Kisumu.

    Area police boss, Bakari Jamberi said an estimated 1,000 students stormed out of their institution to march along the streets disrupting the traffic along the busy Kisumu-Nairobi highway.

    "We managed to disperse them. Nobody was injured during the protest march," Jamberi said by telephone from Kisumu.

    The lakeside city, situated on the shores of Lake Victoria, is a center of opposition to the draft proposals, which critics say will leave too much power with the president.

    The area is also perceived to be a stronghold of Roads and Public Works Minister Raila Odinga, one of the main critics of the proposed new constitution.

    The draft constitution currently being debated by Kenyans will be subjected to a national referendum on 21 November.

    Tension had been building in Kisumu ahead of Saturday's rally, with those campaigning against the draft constitution warning Information Minister Raphael Tuju, who supports the document, to refrain from holding a meeting there.

    Riots broke out as police used tear gas, batons and live ammunition to disperse stone-throwing youths who were determined to disrupt Tuju's rally.

    However, Commissioner of Police Hussein Mohammed Ali, who has defended the action by police, said in a statement that live ammunition was only used when a group of youths tried to storm a police station in a bid to free some of the people arrested duringthe riots.

    "The only moment when police used live ammunition was when the riotous youths attempted to illegally secure the release of arrested suspects from Kondele police station," Ali said on Sunday.

    He described the rioting as "deliberate acts of hooliganism carefully planned by local politicians."

    The increasingly acrimonious debate on Kenya's draft constitution has split President Mwai Kibaki's cabinet with seven ministers spearheading a campaign to have the document rejected inthe referendum.

    Critics of the draft say it fails to establish a strong prime minister's post, which they say would prevent the president abusing his powers.

    They also complain that the proposed constitution vests in the presidency the authority to hire and fire the prime minister.

    Supporters of the draft constitution, for their part, have argued that presidential powers have been significantly curtailed in the proposed basic law.

    If the new constitution is approved on 21 November, it would bethe first major overhaul of Kenya's constitution since independence from Britain in 1963. Enditem