Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced he is temporarily stepping down in order to face charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, both stand accused of inciting ethnic violence which killed 1,200 people after Kenya’s 2007 election. By turning power over to Ruto during a hearing this week, Kenyatta will avoid becoming the first sitting president to appear before the court. He said he took the step to preserve Kenyan sovereignty.

President Uhuru Kenyatta: “I now take the extraordinary and unprecedented step of invoking article 147.(3) of the constitution, and I will shortly issue the legal notice necessary to appoint honorable William Ruto, the deputy president, as acting president while I attend the status conference at The Hague in the Netherlands.”