Kenya reforms judiciary, AU backs ICC trials delay, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Reforms prescribed by new constitution
* Judicial changes to cement Kenya's plea over ICC trials
* AU vote may embolden Kenya's in its pursuit of deferral
* ICC seen as targeting Africa by many on continent
* More than 1,200 people killed in post-election violence


By James Macharia
NAIROBI, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki on Friday named a new chief justice as part of planned reforms and to cement the east African country's case to have The Hague allow it to hold trials of post-election violence suspects.
Kenya wants to block the International Criminal Court (ICC) from holding the possible trials of six suspected masterminds of the deadly fighting that erupted after the opposition accused Kibaki of rigging the Dec. 2007 presidential election.

The country won the support of the African Union at a summit in Addis Ababa where foreign ministers backed Kenya's plan to suspend criminal proceedings against the suspects.

Kenya is now likely to call for the U.N. Security Council to defer or suspend the trials from taking place for a year while it overhauls its judiciary to handle the cases.
Kibaki nominated Justice Alnashir Visram as the next chief justice. He also named lawyers Githu Muigai as attorney general and Kioko Kilukumi as director of public prosecutions. The appointments are subject to parliamentary approval.

Kenya's post-election violence, which saw hundreds of thousands uprooted from their homes, was sparked when Prime Minister Raila Odinga, then opposition leader, accused Kibaki of rigging the vote. The two later agreed to form a unity cabinet to end the bloodshed after weeks of negotiations.

Odinga, who is attending the AU summit in Ethiopia, said he was not consulted on the nominations of the judiciary officials.

This is a further sign of a widening split in the cabinet, which emerged after Odinga criticised Kenya's move to seek the AU's backing in delaying the ICC trials, which Kibaki supported.

"No, I was not consulted," said Odinga when asked by Reuters if he had spoken to Kibaki regarding the nominations.

"I will deal with this when I get back to Nairobi," he said.

Kenya's suspended higher education minister William Ruto and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, are the most prominent suspects on the ICC list. They have both declared they will run for president in elections next year.

Ruto was suspended to defend an unrelated corruption case.

AU VOTE
One African diplomat said the AU vote had been unanimous.
"There was a vote and we decided for it, for Kenya's position," Djibouti's Foreign Affairs Minster Mahamoud Ali Youssouf told Reuters on the sidelines of the summit.
The vote has to be formally passed by African heads of state at the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

The U.N. Security Council helped set up the ICC and has control over its mandate, enabling it to postpone cases for one year, especially if the prosecution of such cases could cause further upheavals in the country where crimes occurred.

It can however refuse, as it did when Sudan sought a delay in the case against President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

(Additional reporting by Richard Lough, Aaron Maasho and Patrick Muiruri in Addis Ababa; Editing by Matthew Jones)