Kenya's President 'Vindicated' after ICC Drops Charges

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta said he had been "vindicated" after the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor dropped charges of crimes against humanity against him on Friday.

The announcement dealt a massive blow to the Hague-based tribunal after a long-running and troubled case.

It came two days after the ICC's judges gave prosecutors one week to strengthen or drop the charges against Kenyatta, saying a trial could no longer be postponed.

Kenyatta, who has maintained his innocence throughout, reacted by saying his conscience was "absolutely clear" in the case linked to the country's 2007-08 post-election violence, the worst in its history since it won independence from Britain in 1963.

"For the prosecutor to sustain an obviously deficient case for so long demonstrates beyond doubt the intensity of pressure exerted by improper interests to pollute and undermine the philosophy of international justice," the president said.

Kenyatta vowed to fight on until two remaining cases at the ICC against Kenyans, including one against his deputy William Ruto, are dropped.

"As they say, one case down, two more to go," Kenyatta said in a Twitter message.

Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda called the decision "a dark day for international criminal justice."

"This is a painful moment for the men, women and children who have suffered tremendously from the horrors of the post-election violence," she said. 

- 'Not beyond reasonable doubt' - 

Bensouda said in a statement "the evidence has not improved to such an extent that Mr Kenyatta's alleged criminal responsibility can be proven beyond reasonable doubt."

Bensouda said the case was withdrawn "without prejudice", meaning that should there be enough evidence against Kenyatta in the future, new charges could be laid.

Kenyatta, 53, faced five charges including murder and rape and deportation for allegedly masterminding post-election violence in the east African country in 2007-08 in which more than 1,200 people died and 600,000 were displaced.

Legal experts said the announcement after a marathon four-year investigation, littered with allegations of witness intimidation, bribery and false testimony, was a huge blow for Bensouda's office and the ICC, which was set up in 2002 to probe the world's gravest crimes.

"It's the court's biggest setback since its establishment at the turn of the century," said Eugene Kontorovich, international law professor at Chicago's Northwestern University.

"The collapse of the Kenyatta trial will certainly hurt the ICC more than it does Kenya," Kontorovich added.

- 'Dark day for justice' - 

Kenya fought an international campaign to put Kenyatta's trial on hold, as well as that of his rival-turned-partner Ruto, who has been on trial at the ICC on similar charges since September 2013.

Like Kenyatta, Ruto rejects the charges.

African leaders have also frequently called for the charges to be withdrawn, saying the ICC's investigations unfairly targeted their continent.

Prosecutors, in a last-ditch effort to build a case against Kenyatta, asked judges to postpone the trial and rule that Nairobi refused to cooperate in a request to hand over documents which prosecutors said may prove his guilt.  

But the ICC's judges on Wednesday slapped down the request, instead giving Bensouda's office seven days to beef up the charges or drop them.

Bensouda on Friday blamed Nairobi for the case's collapse, saying she had "persistently sought to secure the cooperation that my office required from the government of Kenya in this case in order to execute my mandate."

She said her office "faced other severe challenges" including a relentless stream of false media reports in Kenya, and an "unprecedented campaign" on social media to expose the names of prosecution witnesses and threats, harassment and intimidation of would-be witnesses.

- Bitter memories still fresh - 

Rights groups also lamented the decision, with Amnesty International saying both Kenya and the ICC "continued to fail the victims of the post-election violence."

"The prosecution must draw lessons from this process and its investigative failures," said Muthoni Wanyeki, AI's regional director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

Kenyatta's lawyer Steven Kay, who repeatedly pressed judges to acquit his client, demanded an apology.

"They (prosecutors) were warned... from the beginning that this case was fabricated," Kay told AFP in an email.

Bitter memories are still fresh in Kenya of the unrest which shattered the country's image as a beacon of regional stability.

Violence broke out after opposition chief Raila Odinga accused then president Mwai Kibaki of rigging his way to re-election.

What began as political riots quickly turned into ethnic killings of Kenyatta's Kikuyu tribe, who in turn launched reprisal attacks.