“To subject a sovereign head of state to a warrant of arrest is undermining African solidarity and African peace and security that we fought for so many years,” said Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika, current head of the pan-African organization.

Mutharika urged his counterparts at an AU summit in Kampala to look for ways of resolving the conflict in Sudan without the need to arrest Bashir.

“There is a general concern in Africa that the issuance of a warrant of arrest for... Bashir, a duly elected president, is a violation of the principles of sovereignty guaranteed under the United Nations and under the African Union charter,” he said.

“Maybe there are other ways of addressing this problem. Let us together explore this possibility.”

The ICC this month added a genocide charge to Bashir’s indictment, which also includes charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Bashir himself did not attend the AU summit. The 53-member bloc has repeatedly criticized the arrest warrant, saying it harms its efforts to pacify Sudan.

In a further snub, Khartoum will not even send a minister from Khartoum to the summit, official sources said.

The move deepens a rift between the neighbors after President Yoweri Museveni did not attend Bashir’s swearing-in after disputed elections, but visited Juba for the inauguration of South Sudan President Salva Kiir, Bashir’s deputy.

“This is not about the president being afraid of being arrested,” one presidential source told Reuters. “We could send the vice president instead but we are not sending him or any minister,” the source said. The ICC added genocide this month to charges issued last year against Bashir of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war-torn Darfur region.

But the AU has accused the court of double standards and of targeting the continent. A draft AU resolution seen by Reuters on Saturday in Kampala told member states not to arrest Bashir.

Bashir himself rarely fails to attend an AU summit and, intent on wooing its African allies, Sudan always sends high-level representation to the meetings.

The Sudanese permanent representative to the AU will head the delegation, the sources said.

The snub also follows a diplomatic faux pas by Uganda which retracted a statement last month that Bashir was not invited to the summit after Khartoum asked the AU to switch venue.

In defiance of the ICC warrant Bashir visited Chad last week - the first time he has traveled to a full member of the court - and returned triumphantly praising African solidarity.

The visit exposed the ICC’s key weakness - it has no police force and relies on member states to arrest suspects.