Sudan’s Bashir flies to Indonesia
March 5, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir travelled to Indonesia on Saturday evening for an extraordinary Islamic summit despite an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued in Mars 2009.
In April last year Bashir cancelled at the last minute his trip to Jakarta for an Asia-Africa summit.
Indonesia is not a State Party to the Rome Statute and has no obligation to arrest the Sudanese president.
However, last year a campaign was organized by right groups and activists to put pressure on the Indonesian government to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal.
The Sudanese president visited several African states members of the ICC but he was not arrested. However, the issue generated a large literature in the international law on Bashir’s immunity.
The OIC summit was initially to be held in Morocco but the north African monarchy declined to organize it.
The summit is expected to renew the support of the Islamic world to the right of Palestinian people to establish an independent state and to condemn Israeli attempts to “erase its Islamic and Arab identity” of Jerusalem.
“The two-day summit with start with a preparatory meeting of senior officials on 6 March. This will be followed by a meeting of foreign ministers, with the outcomes of the first day of deliberations forwarded to the leaders of the OIC member states on 7 March 2016,” said a statement issued by the Islamic organization.
(ST)