Kenya to quit ICC

Kenya's parliament voted on Thursday to quit the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, but the Hague-based tribunal said it would press ahead anyway with the trials of the country's president and his deputy.

Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto are accused of orchestrating violence after elections in 2007. About 1,200 people were killed in ethnic blood-letting that plunged east Africa's biggest economy into crisis.

Both men had promised to cooperate with the global court before the vote, a position echoed by Ruto's lawyer just before the decision on Thursday. But neither were available for comment on whether that was still their position after the decision.

The parliamentary motion underlined mounting hostility against the court among politicians in Kenya and across Africa who have accused it of bias as all its suspects to date have been from the continent.
 
Ruto's trial starts on Tuesday and Kenyatta's in November, despite Kenyan efforts to have the cases dropped or moved nearer home. Both have denied the charges.

Parliament, dominated by the alliance that brought Kenyatta to power in a peaceful election in March, voted to tell the government to withdraw from the ICC.

The motion, tabled by majority leader Adan Duale, said the pair had been "lawfully elected" and the government should take steps to "immediately" withdraw from the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.

The sentence stating that Kenya would "suspend any links, co-operation and assistance" to the ICC was removed during the debate but it did call for the government to withdraw from the Rome Statue.

Mr Duale noted that the US had refused to sign the Rome Statute to protect its citizens and soldiers from potential politically motivated prosecutions.

"Let us protect our citizens. Let us defend the sovereignty of the nation of Kenya," Mr Duale is quoted as saying.

MPs from the opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord), led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, walked out of the debate, calling the motion "capricious" and "ill-considered".

Kenya's withdrawal would not bring "honour to the nation and dignity to our leaders", Cord said in a statement.

"Kenya cannot exist outside the realm of international law," it said.

"I am setting the stage to redeem the image of the Republic of Kenya," Aden Duale, the majority leader from Kenyatta's Jubilee coalition, said on behalf of the motion.

Opposing him, minority leader Francis Nyenze warned: "We'll be seen as a pariah state, we'll be seen as people who are reactionary and who want to have their way."

Under parliamentary procedure, the government will now introduce a bill to cut ties with the court formally. The ICC said any departure would take at least a year and it would have no effect on running cases.

No other country has withdrawn from the ICC.

Kenya ratified the Rome Statutes in 2005, but Western diplomats have said the cooperation of the Kenyan authorities with the court has often been limited - "wafer thin" according to one senior diplomat in Nairobi.

Analysts say the ICC must do more to address African concerns that it has become a tool for world powers.

"In the early years, Africa welcomed the attention (from the court), but that started to tip about five years ago when the Africans realized the court had become a very loyal partner of the U.N. Security Council," said Bill Schabas, professor of international law at Britain's Middlesex University.

At the time of the 2007 vote, Kenyatta from Kenya's biggest Kikuyu ethnic group was a rival to Ruto, a Kalenjin. After that vote was disputed, machete-wielding members from their groups were blamed for much of the post-election bloodshed.