Kenyatta: 'ICC is not fulfilling its mandate'

Uhuru Kenyatta reiterated his call for reform to the ICC in an interview with DW in Berlin. "We have articulated our position on the need to reform the ICC very clearly, and we will continue to do so," Kenyatta said. "We want reform, but we are also equally prepared to say that we shall leave if we do not get the necessary reforms that we require. But we are seeing it as a court that is not fulfilling the mandate that it was supposed to fulfill when its statute was first conceived."

On April 6, the ICC dropped charges against Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto in regard to ethnic tensions leading to over 1,000 deaths after the 2007 elections. In December 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) dropped charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after failing to produce enough evidence for the trial to go ahead.

During his state visit to Germany the president lobbied for German investment in Kenya. Kenyatta promised to tackle corruption in his country: "We are taking this issue hands-on. We are strengthening our laws, creating a new bribery bill that criminalizes bribery from both the point of the giver and the taker and strengthening the institutions we have to fight corruption. Kenya is seriously addressing this issue."

Kenya's head of state said he wanted to cooperate more closely with Germany fighting the Islamic al-Shabab militia and other terrorist groups in East Africa. "We would like to work with Germany to strengthen our own security forces to help us fight this battle better, while we also increase our cooperation in intelligence-sharing," Kenyatta told DW.