Ruto concludes talks with ICC

Eldoret North MP William Ruto for the third day held talks with officials of the International Criminal Court Saturday ahead of his return to the country.

The recently suspended Higher Education Minister is expected back home later Saturday after a busy day defending and clearing his name with the ICC officials.

Ruto spent the whole day Friday in a series of meetings with officers at the ICC to establish procedures on how he will defend himself against charges of post-elections violence if he is indicted.

Mr Ruto's team promised to give an update after the end of the meeting but unconfirmed reports indicate that the last meeting was at 8am local time. 

Meanwhile,  Reuters has established that Ruto met only ICC investigators and not ICC boss Moreno Ocampo during his trip to The Hague.
The office of the prosecutor at the ICC said on Saturday that Ocampo was in London on Thursday and Friday, making it impossible for him to have met with Ruto. This contradicts earlier reports that the former Minister met with the ICC boss. Ruto was however not immediately available for comment.
William Ruto left for The Hague on Wednesday, saying he planned to meet ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and his staff to give his version of the events around the post-election killings in a bid to clear his name in the investigation.
The ICC has not yet formally identified any key suspects.
Ruto told Reuters that his meetings at the ICC on Friday had been "very productive, very positive, very informative." The office of the prosecutor has not commented on the meetings.
"This is the right thing to do, to put to rest the issues of the post-election violence in our country and we need to get the country to move on," Ruto said of his trip to The Hague.

Ruto's suprise visit to The Hague has sent shock waves across the country with politicians wondering what he would divulge on the violence.

The legislator also returns to the close of a two day retreat of his ODM party, with the Prime Minister Raila Odinga denying that the party was preparing to defend itself against allegations that it incited the youth into mass action after the disputed presidential elections in December 2007 and claims that ICC had requested to be given minutes of an ODM meeting where mass action was discussed.

Two cabinet ministers have reportedly written to Ocampo requesting to be granted appointments with the ICC team.

The top officials received letters from Ocampo informing them that they had been adversely mentioned by the witnesses and were under the ongoing ICC probe.

An estimated 1000 people died in the post poll skirmishes while another 500 000 were left homeless.