Sudan to hand over ex-leader to face trial for alleged Darfur genocide
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Sudan's ousted President Omar al-Bashir arriving at the courthouse in the capital Khartoum in July last year. He has been wanted by the International Criminal Court for more than a decade over charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
KHARTOUM • Sudan will hand longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC) along with two other officials wanted over the Darfur conflict, Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi has said.
Bashir, 77, has been wanted by the ICC for more than a decade over charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region.
The United Nations says 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict, which erupted in the vast western region in 2003.
The "Cabinet decided to hand over wanted officials to the ICC", Ms Mahdi was quoted as saying by state news agency Suna, without giving a timeframe.
The Cabinet's decision to hand him over came during a visit to Sudan by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who met Ms Mahdi on Tuesday.
But the decision still needs the approval of Sudan's transitional ruling body, the sovereign council, comprised of military and civilian figures. On Wednesday, Mr Khan met the leader of the sovereign council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, as well as Mr Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, its deputy chair. Mr Daglo said Sudan "is prepared to cooperate with the ICC", Suna reported.
ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah did not comment on the announcement, saying Mr Khan was "in Khartoum to discuss cooperation matters", but that the prosecutor was set to hold a press conference yesterday afternoon.
The transitional authorities have previously said they would hand Bashir over, but one stumbling block was that Sudan was not party to the court's founding Rome Statute. But last week, Sudan's Cabinet voted to ratify the Rome Statute, a move seen as a step towards Bashir facing trial.
Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades before being deposed amid popular protests in 2019, is behind bars in Khartoum's high-security Kober prison. He is jailed alongside two other former top officials facing ICC war crimes charges - former defence minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and Ahmed Haroun, a former governor of South Kordofan.
The Hague-based ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in 2009 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, later adding genocide to the charges.
Bashir was ousted by the military and detained in April 2019 after four months of mass nationwide protests against his rule. The former strongman was convicted in December 2019 for corruption, and has been on trial in Khartoum since July last year for the Islamist-backed 1989 coup which brought him to power. He faces the death penalty if found guilty.
Sudan has been led since August 2019 by a transitional civilian-military administration that has vowed to bring justice to victims of crimes committed under Bashir.
Khartoum signed a peace deal last October with key Darfuri rebel groups, with some of their leaders taking top jobs in government, although violence continues to dog the region.
The Darfur war broke out in 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms, complaining of systematic discrimination by Bashir's Arab-dominated government. Khartoum responded by unleashing the notorious Janjaweed militia, recruited from among the region's nomadic peoples.
Human rights groups have long accused Bashir and his former aides of using a scorched-earth policy, raping, killing, looting and burning villages.
Last year, alleged senior Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman surrendered to the court. ICC judges said last month he would be the first suspect to be tried over the Darfur conflict.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE