* Shilling seen shrugging off ICC ruling * Central bank takes out 150 mln shilling via repos (Adds central bank repo, ICC ruling date) NAIROBI, Jan 20 (Reuters) - The Kenyan shilling reversed early gains on Friday as importers snapped up dollars, taking advantage of the shilling's two percent gain on the U.S. currency this week, traders said. At 1010 GMT, commercial banks quoted the shilling at 85.85/86.00 against the dollar after earlier hitting an intra-day high of 85.55/75 and weaker than Thursday's close of 85.70/90. "At these lower levels we expect to see some people who have been standing on the sidelines start showing some (dollar) buying interest," said Dickson Magecha, a trader at Standard Chartered Bank. The International Criminal Court is due to rule on Jan. 23 on whether it has confirmed charges of crimes against humanity levelled against six high profile Kenyans, but market players saw little impact from this on the local currency market. "When we look at the ICC, we'd be looking at the political risk, and I think the political risk has always been priced into the Kenya shilling, being an election year," said Magecha. The central bank, keen not to let the shilling slide out of control as it did last year, returned to the market, mopping up 150 million shillings at a weighted average rate of 17.5 percent. It was the 12th time this month the bank has taken liquidity out through repos. Persistent mopping up of liquidity and selling of hard currencies to commercial banks has helped the shilling climb 2 percent this week. "The current credit squeeze has led to reduction in aggregate demand for the dollar causing the unit to strengthen," said Bank of Africa in a daily report. "Although we are heading into the end of month, chances are that we could see a stronger shilling."

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