THE HAGUE: The top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday sought the arrest of Sudan’s President Omar Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.
Bashir had “personally instructed” his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups in the western Sudanese region, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told journalists in The Hague, shortly after presenting his evidence to the court.
The president had ordered his forces “not to bring back any wounded or prisoners,” he added. “He wanted to commit genocide.”
Sudan immediately rejected the charges as damaging to Darfur peace hopes and Bashir said the ICC had no jurisdiction in Sudan and its charges were lies. “From the beginning we said we are not a member of the court... the court has no jurisdiction over Sudan,” Bashir said in comments carried live on Sudanese state television.
“Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes... will know that all of these things (including ethnic cleansing) are lies,” he added.
The joint UN-AU peacekeeping mission in Darfur said it would evacuate its nonessential staff but maintain its operation in the war-torn region. A UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the move, ordered by UNAMID force commander Martin Agwai, affected only about 1,800 police and 1,000 civilians who are to leave the country temporarily in coming days.
The United States said it had tightened security at its embassy and offices in Sudan. Fearing a violent backlash, the United States assessed security at both its embassy in Khartoum and US facilities in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
He said violence was possible against US interests and international peacekeeping forces in Sudan after the ICC decision. “We would urge restraint on all parties in Sudan,” he said.
In Cairo, the Arab League said foreign ministers would hold an emergency meeting on Sudan on Saturday.
The Argentine prosecutor has requested a warrant on 10 counts, three of them for genocide. Charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity included allegations of murder, torture, attacks against civilians and pillaging.
The three judges of the court will now examine the application to ascertain whether there are sufficient grounds for issuing a warrant, a process the prosecutor said he expects to take two to three months.
If charges are brought, it would be the first time the ICC had indicted a sitting head of state since its creation in 2002. Two other presidents, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Liberia’s Charles Taylor, were charged by other international war crimes courts.
