International Prosecutor Seeks Sudanese Official’s Arrest in Darfur Violence

By MARLISE SIMONS
Published: December 2, 2011
　
PARIS — The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court put new pressure on the government of Sudan on Friday by seeking an arrest warrant for the country’s defense minister on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
　
The minister, Abdel Rahim Muhammad Hussein, is a close ally of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has already been indicted by the court for a variety of atrocities and genocide.  

Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

If the judges issue a warrant for Mr. Hussein, he will be the country’s fourth senior politician to be called to account for the violent campaign against civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan during the conflict there between the Arab-dominated government and non-Arab rebel groups.

Three officials, including the president and another minister, already have longstanding warrants, but Mr. Bashir has scoffed at the court, and no one has been arrested. Rather, the case against the president and his associates has become something of a stalemate.
Mr. Bashir has tried in vain to have the charges against him dropped by enlisting other countries to join his campaign against the court. But he has failed to find the necessary support in the United Nations Security Council, which ordered the investigation into the violence and could ask to suspend it.
The president’s predicament has complicated his international travel. He has avoided the United States, Europe and other places where he has feared arrest. Others, including Turkey and South Africa, have quietly disinvited him.
But the prosecutor has also been unsuccessful in persuading countries that recognize the court to arrest Mr. Bashir when he has visited them.
This week,

 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/africa/sudan-defense-ministers-arrest-is-sought-in-darfur-crimes.html?_r=1&ref=sudan

 

the High Court in Kenya issued its own arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir after he was allowed to visit the country in August, even though Kenya was legally bound to arrest him as a signatory to the international court.
Mr. Bashir, responding to the warrant, immediately expelled the Kenyan ambassador, banned all flights leaving Kenya from using Sudanese airspace, and ordered Kenyan peacekeepers and students to leave. The measures were reversed by Friday, after the Kenyan government promised to appeal the High Court’s decision.
The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said in an interview on Friday that he hoped his latest step would renew the focus on Sudan and its defiance of the Security Council. Asked why he was pursuing Mr. Hussein only now for allegations of crimes in 2003 and 2004, the prosecutor said new evidence showed that Mr. Hussein, as the minister of the interior at that time, had played a central role in ordering and coordinating attacks on civilians.
The prosecutor’s aim also appeared to be to undermine the position of Mr. Bashir, who has been weakened since the secession of the country’s oil-rich southern half and "is engaged in armed conflict" in other parts of Sudan that could involve further crimes, he said. "In the end, Bashir will face justice, Sudan has to take note of that," Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said. "The government of Sudan is bigger than one person; people have to understand."
Two Sudanese citizens are now in the court’s custody in The Hague. The suspects, antigovernment rebel leaders who surrendered to the court, are facing trial on suspicion of war crimes involving an attack on international peacekeepers in 2007 that killed 12 and wounded others. A third rebel was released for lack of evidence .