Uhuru Kenyatta's trial at the ICC moved to February 5

 

President Uhuru Kenyatta. The International Criminal Court has pushed the commencement of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trial to February 5, 2014. File

The International Criminal Court has pushed the commencement of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trial to February 5, 2014.

The decision comes a day after the prosecution indicated that they would not oppose vacating the November 12 start date.

It also comes in the wake of a spirited diplomatic campaign by the government and the African Union at the UN Security Council to have the ICC defer the cases against President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

President Kenyatta had applied that his trial be postponed to at least February 12, 2014 while the prosecution wanted that the postponement not go beyond February 3, 2014.

“The Chamber notes that the parties are in agreement on postponing the trial date until February 2014 in order to give the Prosecution additional time to investigate recent factual allegations raised by the Defence.

"The Chamber accepts the parties’ submissions that a postponement is warranted and vacates the trial date of 12 November 2013,” the ICC judges said.

The defence for President Kenyatta wanted the start date of his trial vacated to enable the chamber deal with the issues of abuse of process that it raised on the October 10 filing to have the charges against him dropped.