African leaders want ICC to drop trials of Kenya’s leaders

[Mirror]

• AU creates emergency military force

African leaders are due to pass a resolution urging the International Criminal Court to refer back to Kenya the crimes-against-humanity cases against the country's top leaders, according to a senior African Union official.

Ramtane Lamamra, AU's security commissioner, said the resolution was expected to be passed yesterday as the continental bloc continued with activities to mark its golden jubilee.

"We will be approving this morning what the ministers have proposed, definitely," Lamamra told the AFP news agency, referring to a draft agreed on Friday by foreign ministers.

The resolution calls for the ICC to refer back to Kenya the cases against recently elected President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto.

Furthermore, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, the current chairman of the African Union, yesterday accused the International Criminal Court of racial bias and targeting Africans for prosecution, The Hague-based court was set up to bring the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice – a mission that Hailemariam said it has lost sight of.

"The intention was to avoid any kind of impunity but now the process has degenerated into some kind of race-hunting," Hailemariam told reporters at the end of African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

"So we object to that." Kenyatta and Ruto, elected in March, both face trial in The Hague for their alleged roles in orchestrating deadly violence after the in 2007 election which left 1,100 people dead.

Leaders will call for the "termination of the ICC process ... jurisdictions in Kenya will have to take care of the situation", Lamamra said.

"Heads of state will support what the ministers have proposed."

Lamamra was speaking on the sidelines of the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital.

The proposal would have no legal impact on ICC proceedings if passed, but would significantly boost Kenyatta's standing.

It would be the first time the pan-African body has moved formally against the ICC, even though Kenyatta is the second African leader to face trial, after genocide charges were brought against his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir.

National Mirror