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| William Ruto denies charges of murder, deportation and persecution |
Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto has pleaded not guilty to crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Mr Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta are accused of orchestrating
violence after elections in 2007, and will be tried separately at The
Hague.
Mr Ruto becomes the first serving official to appear at the ICC.
The two trials are seen as a crucial test of the ICC's ability to prosecute political leaders.
This is a politically controversial trial with a complex legal history, says the BBC's Anna Holligan in The Hague.
Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto were on opposite sides during the
2007 election and are accused of orchestrating attacks on members of
each other's ethnic groups.
They formed an alliance for elections in March, saying they were an example of reconciliation.
Analysts say the ICC prosecutions bolstered their campaign as
they portrayed it as foreign interference in Kenya's domestic affairs.
Mr Ruto watched and smiled during proceedings and pleaded not
guilty to each of the three counts of murder, persecution and forcible
transfer of people, our correspondent says.
Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Mr Ruto was a "powerful
politician" who planned the crimes to "satisfy his thirst for power",
AFP news agency reports.
"It is difficult to imagine the suffering or terror
experienced by the men, women and children who were burnt alive, hacked
to death or chased from their homes," she is quoted as saying.
A group of Kenyan MPs and other supporters welcomed Mr Ruto and Mr Sang as they arrived for the trial, AFP reports.
"We are here and now God will see us through. I did not
contribute to the violence in Kenya, but peace," Mr Sang is quoted as
saying.
In Kenya, many people are following the case closely and
opinion is split with opposition supporters welcoming the trial and
government supporters opposed to it, says the BBC's Caroline Karobia in
the capital, Nairobi.
Some 1,200 people were killed and 600,000 forced from their
homes in weeks of violence after the disputed December 2007 election.
More than 40,000 people are estimated to be still living in
camps, which Mr Kenyatta last week promised to close by 20 September.
On Sunday, he gave cheques worth more than $4,500 (£3,000) per family so they could move out of camps and rebuild their lives.
Ex-UN chief Kofi Annan said, in an article in The New York Times,
that the trials were not an assault on Kenya's sovereignty but the
"first steps toward a sustainable peace that Kenyans want, deeply".
"Making clear that no one is above the law is essential to
combat decades of the use of violence for political ends by Kenya's
political elite," he wrote.
Mr Annan brokered the peace deal that brought an end to the brutal killings.
It included an agreement that those responsible for the violence must be held to account.
A commission was set up to investigate the
violence and it recommended that if efforts to establish special
tribunals in Kenya failed, the matter should be sent to The Hague.
Kenya repeatedly failed to set up such tribunals and so the
ICC indicted those it said bore the greatest responsibility for the
violence.
The ICC on Monday said the two trials would not clash, after
Mr Kenyatta warned that the constitution prevented the two men from
being abroad at the same time.
The president is due to go on trial in November.
He also denies charges of fuelling violence.
The judges at The Hague have indicated the two cases could be heard alternately - in blocks of four weeks.
On Thursday, Kenya's parliament passed a motion calling for the country to withdraw from the ICC.
The court said the cases would continue, even if Kenya withdrew.
In May, the African Union (AU) accused the ICC of "hunting" Africans because of their race.
The ICC says it pursues justice impartially and will not allow perpetrators of violence to go unpunished.
The ICC was set up in 2002 to deal with genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.
The court has been ratified by 122 countries, including 34 in Africa.
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