Sudan to set up criminal court to try war crimes in Darfur

KHARTOUM, May 22, 2005 (Sudan tribune) — The Sudanese minister of foreign affairs, Mustafa Osman Ismail, has said that Sudan will set up a court to try Sudanese citizens accused of what is known as war crimes in Darfur within the next three months at the latest.

A special judge, sits in court in Nyala Sept 30, 2004 to try six Sudanese men accused of belonging to the Janjaweed, who killed 24 people in the southern Darfur region in Oct 2003.(Reuters).

The U.N. Security Council in March referred Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. But it also left the door open for Sudan to hold its own trials provided these were credible, saying the ICC should encourage such domestic efforts.

Speaking to the press in China, the minister said that Khartoum is cooperating with the AU in this respect and that a Sudanese committee, headed by the minister of justice, would shortly announce the setting up of the court and name the general prosecutor.

Ismail promised the trials would be public and under the supervision of the AU adding that the ICC should encourage such local efforts.

In the same regard, the minister of justice, Ali Osman Yasin, said the setting up of a court to try those implicated in Darfur depended on the completion by the committee of inquiry headed by High Court judge, Abd-al-Rahim, of its work.

Speaking to the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC), the minister of justice said that the court would be set up by the chief justice in accordance with his judicial powers and that subsequently, the Ministry of Justice would appoint a special prosecutor to oversee charges adding that this all depended on the progress of the current inquiry.

Sudanese government is accused of retaliating by arming militias who burned villages and killed and raped civilians. At least 180,000 people have died from violence, hunger and disease, and more than 2 million people have been displaced.