NAIROBI (AP) — Kenya’s Senate voted Thursday to remove Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua from office in an impeachment trial on corruption and other allegations, hours after the deputy president was taken to the hospital with chest pains.
Senators approved five of 11 grounds for impeachment against Gachagua, making him the first sitting deputy president to be removed from office in impeachment proceedings.
The vote on the first of the five counts was 54-13, well above the two-thirds majority required to convict and remove him from office.
The lower house of Parliament, the National Assembly, voted 282-44 last week to impeach the deputy president.
Gachagua had pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the 11 charges and had been expected to be cross-examined by lawyers from the Assembly in the afternoon. But the hearing was briefly adjourned after Gachagua was hospitalised and his lawyers asked for a pause to give him until Tuesday to appear before the chamber.
However, Assembly lawyers said Gachagua’s defense already had been presented and that the Senate was bound by the constitution to continue the proceedings.