The Kenyan senate has voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

The lawmakers voted Thursday evening despite a plea from Paul Muite, Gachagua’s lawyer, to postpone the proceedings.

According to Muite, Gachagua was hospitalised after falling very sick hours before the vote was set to hold.

Amason Kingi, the senate speaker, said Gachagua had until 5pm local time to show up.

The lawmakers impeached the vice president after his health kept him away from the hearing.

The 59-year-old becomes the first deputy president to be impeached in Kenya’s history.

At least 53 senators voted to uphold the first charge.

Gachagua, who faced 11 charges, was impeached on five counts.

The charges include ground one of shareholding, ground four of undermining the independence of judges, ground five of the National Cohesion and Integrity Act 4, ground six of crimes under the National Cohesion Act, and ground nine of gross misconduct (public attacks on the national security intelligence service).

In June, Gachagua blamed the head of the intelligence agency for not properly briefing President William Ruto and the government over the magnitude of mass protests against unpopular tax hikes.

The vice president’s action was seen as an act of undermining the president.

In total, 281 MPs voted in favour of the ouster motion against 44. One MP abstained from voting.

“DP Gachagua ceases to hold office,” Kingi said after the vote.

If Gachagua does not petition the vote in court, the impeachment paves the way for the nomination and subsequent replacement by Ruto, who has yet to publicly comment on the development.

The impeached deputy president has repeatedly insisted that the proceedings were a “political witch hunt” and vowed to defend himself.

The Kenyan parliament has begun a trial to remove Vice-President Rigathi Gachagua from office.

This comes hours after a court ruled that the proceedings against him are constitutional.

“At this stage, the process is a lawful, constitutional process, and the Senate will conduct a trial where all the issues being raised before the court will be raised and determined at the moment,” the judge said in court.

Gachagua is facing allegations of supporting the violent anti-government protests that rocked the East African nation in June.

Gachagua is also accused of involvement in corruption, practising ethnically divisive politics, and other activities inconsistent with his office.

Lawmakers said the vice-president amassed assets worth 5.2 billion shillings ($40 million) since the last election, with an annual salary of $93,000.

Among the listed assets was Kenya’s renowned Treetops Hotel.

But Gachagua has insisted that his wealth is through legitimate business deals and an inheritance from his late brother.

Last week, a majority in the national assembly voted to approve his impeachment, setting the stage for the two-day trial in the senate.

As the senate opened proceedings on Wednesday, Gachagua denied the 11 charges read out by the clerk.

“Not guilty,” Gachagua said in response to each one.

At least two-thirds of the 67 senate members must approve the motion for Gachagua to be removed from office.

During Wednesday’s session, evidence by the national assembly against Gachagua, including any witnesses, were introduced and examined for three hours followed by another two hours of cross-examination.

On Thursday, Gachagua’s side will defend the vice-president with evidence and witnesses until late afternoon.

After the process is concluded in the evening, senators will debate the motion for about two hours and then take a vote – scheduled to happen on Thursday night.

If Gachagua’s impeachment stands, he would be barred from ever holding public office.

He would also become the first vice-president to exit office in this way since the possibility of impeachment was introduced in a 2010 revision of Kenya’s constitution.

An Indian passenger aircraft was diverted on Wednesday after the latest in a string of hoax bomb threats made to airline companies involving the country.

The Akasa Air flight, which was flying from India’s capital New Delhi to the southern city of Bengaluru, “received a security alert” and the flight was ordered to return as a “precaution”.

Akasa Air said emergency response teams were monitoring the situation and that the captain had followed “all required emergency procedures for a safe landing in Delhi”.

The flight had 184 people on board, including three infants, the airline said, with the plane landing safely back in New Delhi.

Another flight, the domestic carrier IndiGo flying from Mumbai to New Delhi, was diverted to Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

Zulfiquar Hasan, director-general of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), told the Times of India newspaper that “Indian skies are absolutely safe” and said police were working to identify the culprits.

“We are confident of tracing all those behind these threat messages and very strict action under law will be taken,” Hasan told the newspaper.

The Indian Express newspaper reported 12 domestic and international flights have received bomb threats since Monday, including some messages posted on social media. All have been false alarms.

Singapore scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday to escort an Air India Express plane after an email warning about a possible bomb on board, the city-state’s defence minister said.

Two F-15 jets were deployed to escort the aircraft “away from populated areas” before it landed safely at Changi Airport late on Tuesday.

Air India also said on Tuesday that one of its planes from New Delhi to Chicago had to make an emergency landing in Canada because of “a security threat posted online”.

That flight also landed safely at Canada’s far northern city of Iqaluit.

Canada’s armed forces later airlifted the passengers to Chicago, Canada’s Minister of Defence Bill Blair said on X.

Similar hoaxes were received this week by India’s low-cost operator IndiGo regarding two flights that were to take off, to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and to Muscat in Oman, according to Indian media.