ICC seeing Darfur witnesses outside Sudan
Dec 13, 2005 (UNITED NATIONS) — The prosecutor of the new International Criminal Court said he was investigating killings, mass rapes and other atrocities in western Sudan but could only interview witnesses outside of lawless Darfur.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine who was asked by the U.N. Security Council in March to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, also told the council that the Sudanese government had been cooperating with him.
But Sudan’s Justice Minister Mohammed al-Mardi told Reuters in an interview that Moreno Ocampo’s investigators would not have any access to Darfur, where ethnic cleansing has resulted in killings, rape and the uprooting of 2 million refugees.
“The ICC officials have no jurisdiction inside the Sudan or with regards to Sudanese citizens,” he said in Khartoum. “They cannot investigate anything on Darfur.”
Moreno Ocampo, as well as the current Security Council president, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, told reporters no such official notice had been received from Khartoum.
“We will judge the government of Sudan by its actions,” Jones Parry said, adding that if Sudan did not cooperate, “we will need to respond to that and we will respond to that.”
Moreno Ocampo said he had “screened” 100 potential witnesses outside of Sudan in 17 countries and was in the process of interviewing them.
The prosecutor, who has made one trip to Khartoum to talk to government officials, said he hoped to visit Sudan’s special court and other judicial bodies investigating Darfur crimes early next year.
Under the 1998 Rome statutes setting up the Hague-based International Criminal Court, the prosecutor can only conduct investigations when national courts are unable or unwilling to do so.
But in an 85-page report over the weekend, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said not one mid- or high-level government official, military commander or militia leader had been suspended or prosecuted by Sudanese courts.
COMMAND AND CONTROL
Jones Parry said the prosecutor told the council in a private session “the nature of the attacks in Darfur demonstrated a degree of coordination and a degree of a strategic operation which implied that someone was in command and control of that operation.”
“His intention is to ascertain who it was and hold them responsible,” Jones Parry said.
Moreno Ocampo also told the council that the International Criminal Court and the African Union, which has troops in Darfur, had drawn up a cooperation agreement in May, which still was not signed. He refused to say why.
The International Criminal Court is the first permanent global war crimes tribunal, envisioned after the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War Two.
It was set up to try individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed after July 1, 2002.
The United States vehemently opposes the tribunal, arguing that it could initiate politically motivated prosecutions of American troops and officials abroad. But it allowed the council last March to refer Darfur to the International Criminal Court by abstaining.
One hundred countries have ratified the 1998 Rome Treaty that established the court and believe it contains enough safeguards to prevent frivolous prosecutions.
(Reuters)