ICC Issues A Genocide Arrest Warrant To President Al-Bashir

13 July 2010 - (Khartoum) – The International Criminal Court has issued a second arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir for the crime of genocide in Darfur.

In March 2009, the ICC Pre-Trial chamber 1 issued an arrest warrant against al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

However, the court declined to include the charge of genocide requested by the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, requesting that he should provide additional material to support the accusation.

The Sudanese government has responded to the announcement saying that the genocide charge will not affect the government’s position on the issue, reiterating that Sudan does not recognize the ICC.

The advisor to the minister of information Dr. Rabie Abdullaati spoke to SRS on Tuesday from Khartoum.

[Doctor Rabie Abdullaati]: “This decision will neither affect government policy, nor change the Sudanese people’s stance towards the ICC. It is clear that the ICC’s decisions always coincide with the political and economic development in Sudan, and that indicates clearly that the ICC has a political agenda and that there are some parties who are pushing it, to realize their own political aims by trying to target the sovereignty of the Sudanese people.”

However, a senior official in the opposition Popular Congress Party said that the ICC decisions are legal and not political.

Kamal Omar, who is also a lawyer, spoke to SRS from Khartoum on Tuesday.

[Kamal Omar]: “I was not surprised by the court’s decision, because the reality of the conflict in Darfur, and the way the government dealt with it, was obviously showing that the court will concur with the plaintiff and issue the genocide charge. I’m really urging the Sudan government to deal with this decision seriously and credibly, and with a new spirit that will differ from the previous decisions. There are no other options, this is international justice and it is not politicized. The court has nothing to do with America or Britain, or with any other party that the government can claim they are targeted by. There is no targeting on Sudan’s government.”

A Sudanese political analyst says that the new genocide charge issued by the ICC will not have any negative impact on politics in Sudan.

Faisal Mohamed Salih, spoke to SRS on Tuesday from Khartoum.

[Faisal Mohamed]: “I don’t expect that it will have a big impact on the political scene in Sudan, because the decision is linked to a previous incident, meaning that the really big decision was taken in March last year and had a big impact on Sudanese politics and provoked a strong reaction internally and externally, when the ICC issued an arrest warrant against President al-Bashir for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Therefore I don’t think it will have a new impact, even in the Sudanese media, there was no big concern following this decision unlike what happened when the first decision was announced.”

Faisal Mohamed Salih was speaking to SRS from Khartoum on Tuesday