DP William Ruto's trial takes a break, to resume on November 11

The trial of Deputy President William Ruto at the International Criminal Court (ICC) took a break yesterday, paving the way for the status conference in the case against his boss President Uhuru Kenyatta.

And on Thursday, the Appeals Chamber will hold an open court session to read a summary of its judgement on Mr Ruto and Mr Sang's defence teams' appeal against the Trial Chamber V(a) decision to compel witnesses to testify.

In April, the chamber granted the prosecutor's request to summon witnesses who were no longer co-operating or no longer willing to testify.

The Kenya Government was requested to assist in serving the summonses to the witnesses. But on June 5 , defence teams for Ruto and Sang appealed against the decision by Trial Chamber V(a).

On June 17, 2014, the Appeals Chamber rejected the defence request for suspensive effect, meaning the appeal procedure did not impact the course of the trial hearings at this stage or the testimony of summoned witnesses. This decision was without prejudice to the Appeals Chamber's judgement on the merits of the ongoing appeals.

On September 1, 2014, the first witness summoned to appear attended the hearing before Trial Chamber V(a), and four of the nine have testified to date.

From yesterday until tomorrow, the two Kenyan cases will be the only agenda at the ICC.

The Kenyatta case will be presided in the same courtroom where Ruto, now Kenya's acting President, has sat for days during his trial. The ICC has only two courtrooms, a situation that has previously raised concerns among judges.

Four witnesses testified in the one-month session from Nairobi via video link to The Hague. The four were declared hostile witnesses after recanting their testimonies recorded with the ICC investigators and diverting from the prosecution's case.

They claimed they were recruited by other persons and paid to implicate both Ruto and co-accused Sang in the 2007-2008 post-election violence.

The session was scheduled to end last Thursday but spilled over due to technical hitches.

The four witnesses had earlier withdrawn from the case but were compelled to testify by the court through the Kenya Government.

The next session is scheduled to start on November 11 and end on December 12. It could be the last session before the prosecution closes its case against Ruto and Sang.

Ruto is only required to be present at the first five days of each session.

Earlier yesterday, the witness maintained he was coached by a local NGO and given information to implicate Ruto and Sang in the violence.

Part of the statement he said he was asked to make were allegations that he had attended meetings at which Ruto addressed Kalenjin youths towards the end of 2007 and marshalled them to prepare to evict the Kikuyu from parts of the Rift Valley.

The witness, however, insisted that he heard the then ODM presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, declare there would be a bloodbath in Kenya if he was not elected president.

The witness was taken to task by the defence team over this allegation since he had only spoken about it in court last week and had not recorded it in his statement.