Uhuru asks ICC to postpone trial to January 2014

 President Uhuru Kenyatta has asked the International Criminal Court to move his trial date moved to January 2014.

In his application to the trial judges, President Uhuru has said his defence team needs more time to investigate the “credibility and substantive allegations made by five prosecution witnesses whose identities and unredacted transcripts have still not been disclosed” to the defence.

Both President Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity following the chaos that followed the flawed general elections in 2007. The President’s trial is scheduled to start on July 9 of this year.

Deputy President Ruto had also asked the ICC  postpone his trial date to November at the earliest. Ruto’s trial at the Hague was scheduled to start on May 28 but was postponed by the trial judges until a status conference that began on Monday.

At the status conference Ruto’s defence team was challenged to explain why the trial should be postponed to November and why he should be allowed to attend some of the proceedings through video link.

On Tuesday the Deputy President made an historic appearance before ICC judges to negotiate his physical absence from the trial. 

Together with his co-accused Joshua Sang, Ruto became the first Deputy President to appear before Hague - based court in what his lawyer Karim Khan described as a testimony to his “exemplary record of cooperation” with the court.