The International Criminal Court dropped its case against the deputy president of Kenya, William Ruto, on Tuesday, marking another setback for the court and ending a long, tortuous case that tangled Kenya’s relations with the West and rearranged Kenyan politics.
A divided panel decided, 2 to 1, to vacate the case against Mr. Ruto and a prominent radio host, Joshua arap Sang. The two men were charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the 2007-8 postelection chaosin Kenya that left more than 1,200 people dead and many others wounded or raped, and forced about 600,000 to flee.
The chief judge, Chile Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria, declared a mistrial “due to a troubling incidence of witness interference and intolerable political meddling.” While Mr. Ruto agreed to stand trial, the Kenyan government has steadfastly resisted cooperating with the tribunal.
One Kenyan television station called the collapse of the case the “Great Escape.” Kenya’s interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, said “our prayers had been answered.” In Mr. Ruto’s hometown, Eldoret, people poured into the streets Tuesday evening, hugging each other.
The decision by the court came 16 months after the prosecutor said its office had no choice but to suspend the case against President Uhuru Kenyatta even before the trial began. That case, on charges similar to those against Mr. Ruto, was hampered because the government was blocking most avenues of investigation and witnesses were threatened and bribed, the prosecution said.
The decision is a serious setback for the office of the international criminal prosecutor, whose jurisdiction began in 2002, but also for the court itself, which is still struggling to assert its authority.
Another judge, Robert Fremr of the Czech Republic, wrote that the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence for a conviction. The third judge on the panel, Olga Venecia del C. Herrera Carbuccia of the Dominican Republic, dissented, finding that the prosecution’s case had not broken down. The ruling leaves open the possibility that Mr. Ruto and Mr. Sang could be retried in the future.
The case against Mr. Ruto, like that of Mr. Kenyatta, was exceptional for several reasons, not least because sitting leaders were facing criminal prosecution. They were indicted in 2011, well before they were elected in 2013.
No top politician had ever been prosecuted for corruption in Kenya, despite its notorious reputation for corruption. Both men, members of the country’s wealthy and powerful political elite, took the indictments as an affront and began a campaign accusing the court of bias and of being a tool of neocolonialism.
Mr. Kenyatta denied the charges and used them to stoke Kenyan nationalism and anti-Western sentiment during the election campaign. Once in office, he mobilized diplomats to organize a campaign against the court at the African Union.
Both men denied charges of masterminding or bankrolling death squads or urging their followers to attack opposing tribes. Very few people have been held accountable, even though many of the killings and rapes happened in full view of police officers, a Kenyan commission has found.
The Kenyan cases highlight the difficulties in bringing to justice senior officials who have been charged with atrocities, and underscore what specialists call the Achilles’ heel of the court: its dependence on cooperation from governments. With no enforcement agency at its disposal, it cannot execute arrest warrants, get access to crime scenes or search official records without the cooperation of the national authorities.
Critics of Luis Moreno Ocampo, the previous prosecutor, have said he should have assigned experienced investigators early on, protected more witnesses and stopped the accused from running for office.
These cases had been hanging over Kenya for years, complicating Kenya’s politics and its international relations in unexpected ways. The United States had taken a hard stance against Mr. Ruto, with American officials trying to avoid appearing in public with him while he stood accused of crimes against humanity.
In 2013, when Mr. Ruto and Mr. Kenyatta were running for the country’s highest offices, Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s top official for Africa, warned Kenyans that “choices have consequences.” That thinly veiled threat seemed to backfire with the Kenyan public that rallied around Mr. Kenyatta and Mr. Ruto, who had successfully cast themselves as victims of a Western plot to derail their campaigns. During the election in 2007, the two men had been leaders on opposite sides of the political divide; many Kenyans were surprised when they joined forces in 2013.
Mr. Ruto is known as one of the wiliest politicians in Kenya, a self-made man who came from humble roots in the Rift Valley and can deliver a smooth, information-packed speech without glancing down at a single note. He has a passionate following among his Kalenjin ethnic group, one of the country’s biggest.
Fears had been growing in the past year that if he were convicted, the Kalenjin would vent their outrage against Mr. Kenyatta and members of his ethnic group, the Kikuyus. It was the rivalry between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyus that fueled much of the bloodshed in 2007 and 2008, drawing in the involvement of the International Criminal Court.
Tensions have risen in Kalenjin areas in recent months as the ruling in The Hague loomed.
On Tuesday, many Kenyans — even those who do not support Mr. Ruto — were relieved the case against him had been dropped. It means the Kikuyu-Kalenjin political alliance is likely to remain intact for next year’s presidential election, decreasing the prospects of violence between the two groups.
Though many Western diplomats have privately lamented that no ringleaders have been punished in the killing of more than 1,000 people, the end of this case could mean an end to years of awkwardness between Kenya and its major donors, the United States and Britain.
Mr. Ruto’s trial, which began in 2013, was postponed several times as prosecutors tried to shore up their case and sought permission from judges to use the initial testimony of a number of witnesses who later recanted under pressure. Trial judges agreed, but appeals judges said this new rule could not be applied retroactively to Mr. Ruto, whose trial was already underway.
The decision to halt the trial came in response to a motion by Mr. Ruto’s defense halfway through the proceedings after the prosecution had ended its case.
Karim Khan, Mr. Ruto’s British defense lawyer, wrote that there was no reason to start a defense case because “there was no case to answer.” That prompted the response from the judges.
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