Nairobi (Alshahid) – In a move to placade the Kenyan civil society and foreign funded NGOs Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga Wednesday disowned the shuttle diplomacy spearheaded by Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka to seek the support of African Union to defer Kenya’s case at the International Criminal Court.

Mr Odinga, at a news conference in Nairobi, said what Cabinet had agreed on was the referral of the cases involving the masterminds of the post-election violence suspects to the International Criminal Court and not to defer them.

“What we agreed on was referral and not deferral (of the cases involving the post-election violence suspects),” said Mr Odinga; adding “I can tell you that we never talked about the issue of shuttle diplomacy”.

He went on: “How does the African Union help Kenya yet we are already a signatory of the Rome Statute? If we want to move away from the Rome Statute, which I don’t support, we would rather deal directly with the ICC.”

His statements contradicted that of Mr Musyoka who at a separate news conference earlier on, said the issue to defer the cases had the blessings of none other than President Mwai Kibaki.

Mr Musyoka, a renowned suave diplomat, said he was following President Kibaki’s directive, as his special envoy, in sending special messages to his African counterparts ahead of the AU summit scheduled for Addis Ababa.

“I am not on a personal mission,” said the VP who left the country on Wednesday evening in yet another diplomatic offensive to Libya to solicit the support of President Muamnar Gaddafi on Kenya’s position.

He went on: “I am going on a special mission as the special envoy of the President of the Republic of Kenya. Therefore, anyone thinking the Vice-President is going on his own volition needs to be thus directed,” Africa Review reports.

PM Raila whose political fortunes are waning fast courtesy of Kalonzo, Ruto and Deputy PM Uhuru, is heavily relying on the support of the US and NGOs for his presidential bid. Of late all his statements have been echoing the US position in Africa.