Sudan’s cabinet has decided to hand over longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and other wanted officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC), foreign minister Marian al-Mahdi said on Tuesday.
The “cabinet decided to hand over wanted officials to the ICC”, Mahdi was quoted as saying by the Sudanese news agency (SUNA).
Bashir, currently on trial in Khartoum over the 1989 military coup that propelled him to power, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Darfur, the region in western Sudan where an estimated 300,000 people were killed from 2003 onwards.
The foreign minister’s announcement came after a meeting with the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, on Tuesday to Khartoum, where he also met with the country’s justice minister and public prosecutor.
According to SUNA, Mahdi informed Khan that the Council of Ministers has decided to extradite the wanted persons to the ICC, and approved the draft law on Sudan’s accession to the Rome Statute that established the court.
“The two matters will be presented in a joint meeting between the Sovereignty Council and the council of ministers for the approval of the extradition and ratification of the law,” she said.
She renewed Sudan’s support for the efforts of the court and its cooperation with its judges to achieve justice for the victims of the war in Darfur.
Sudan’s public prosecutor Mubarak Mahmoud met with Khan and expressed readiness to cooperate with the ICC with the Darfur trial.
According to SUNA, the prosecutor “stressed the importance of taking practical steps to bring justice to the victims of the war in Darfur and to hold accountable those responsible for the crimes committed against them”.
Bashir, his former Minister of Defence Abdul Rahim Mohamed Hussein, former head of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) Ahmed Haroun, and senior supporter of APC militia leader Ali Kushayb are all wanted by the ICC for their role in the brutal government repression in the country’s western region of Darfur since 2003.
If Bashir is handed over to The Hague, he would be the third African leader to appear in front of the court after former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo and current Kenyan head of state Uhuru Kenyatta. But unlike the two others, Bashir is widely expected to be found guilty, standing accused of crimes of far larger scale.
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