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President Kenyatta waves at a crowd in Eldoret town on Sept 19. Photo/PSCU

Kenya

I’m on trial for crimes I never committed – Uhuru

President Kenyatta waves at a crowd in Eldoret town on Sept 19. Photo/PSCU

President Kenyatta waves at a crowd in Eldoret town on Sept 19. Photo/PSCU

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 19 – President Uhuru Kenyatta says the fact that Kenya did not erupt into violence during this year’s General Election is proof that he and his deputy William Ruto are not capable of the crimes they have been accused of committing at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

He argued that they had more to lose in the 2013 General Election – where they were on the presidential ticket – than in the 2007 poll for which they are being accused of orchestrating crimes against humanity.

“Weren’t we preaching peace? Is there anyone here who witnessed any violence this time round? Didn’t we all vote and go home? As Kenyans we know that those accusing us (Ruto and I) of advocating violence are making no sense,” Kenyatta told a crowd at Eldoret town on Thursday on his way from a graduation ceremony at Moi University.

He went on to give the example of the 2002 General Election in which he sought the presidency on a KANU ticket, with Ruto by his side, but conceded defeat rather than call for his supporters to take up arms.

And as has become customary, he asked Kenyans to pray for the two of them, but more especially his deputy whose trial is already in progress at The Hague.

“Pray for our country, pray for honourable Ruto and pray for me too because we are a country that believes if you put God first nothing can go wrong and everything will go right,” he said.

The President made his assertion barely a day after Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed came to both his and his deputy’s defence as far as their trials are concerned on the BBC’s HARDtalk.

She accused the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of outright bias against the Head of State and his second-in-command echoing the parliamentary majority’s demand that all the names in the infamous ‘Waki envelope’ be made public.

Pray for honourable Ruto and pray for me too because we are a country that believes if you put God first nothing can go wrong.

“The envelope handed over to Kofi Annan by the Waki Commission had many names of suspects but they picked and chose only a few out of the many names. They picked three from each side of the parties and if this is not politicising then I don’t know what is,” she told the BBC’s Zainab Badawi.

The premature adjournment of the proceedings of Kenya case I, she said, further supported her assertion that the OTP carried out shoddy investigations into the 2007-8 post-election violence.

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A travesty, in her opinion, to the principles of justice and the trust Kenya placed in the court when it became party to the Rome Statute.

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