Lawyers for Kenya’s president-elect Uhuru Kenyatta said charges of crimes against humanity against him should be withdrawn after the collapse of the case against his co-accused, but prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said they had new evidence.

Kenyatta, whose election earlier this month is being challenged by his rival, faces charges at the ICC over bloodshed in the aftermath of Kenya’s 2007 election.

Yesterday, his lawyers said these were clearly now based on hearsay after a key witness in a linked case against former civil servant Francis Muthaura retracted their testimony.

Kenyatta and Muthaura were among six suspects initially charged by ICC prosecutors with orchestrating violence after the 2007 election, when some 1,200 people were killed.

The two prosecutions are based on a lot of the same evidence and both men have always denied any wrongdoing.

Steven Kay, the British barrister defending Kenyatta said prosecutors should have dropped his case when they withdrew charges against Muthaura in a decision announced yesterday.

“What was withdrawn against Mr Muthaura should have been withdrawn against Mr Kenyatta,” Kay, who heads Kenyatta’s defence team, told a hearing at the Hague-based court.

Prosecutors responded that their case was strong enough to go to trial even without the key witness, especially if they were allowed to introduce new evidence they said they had collected since the case had first been allowed to proceed.

“If we open the door to new evidence it will quite quickly become a flood,” Sam Lowery, for the prosecution, said, quoting a prosecution witness describing how he had been given money to buy guns.

“Your honours, you don’t need guns for election campaigning,” Lowery said.

The Kenyatta case is an important test for the ICC, which was set up more than a decade ago as the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal but has only secured one conviction.

The son of his country’s founding president, Kenyatta is set to become the first head of state to be actively defending charges at the ICC, making his case one of the highest-profile it has dealt with.

His election victory has presented a dilemma to Western leaders who see Kenya as a bulwark in a regional struggle against militant Islam.