Sudan insists own courts must try Darfur crimes
Jan 10, 2006 (NYALA, western Sudan) — Sudan’s justice minister said Tuesday the country’s own judiciary was competent to try crimes committed in the western Darfur region and that no foreign tribunal would be allowed to do so.
Mohamed Ali al-Mardhi told AFP “we are satisfied with the competence of our judiciary and therefore we shall not allow any foreign tribunal to do this job”.
Asked if the international prosecutor had sent teams into Sudan to investigate, Mardhi said: “He has not asked for that and if he has done so, we will not permit such a team to do investigation in the Sudan.”
Between 180,000 and 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur since an uprising by rebels beginning in early 2003 prompted a scorched-earth campaign by Janjaweed militias, widely believed to be backed by the government in Khartoum.
The government has established its own controversial special court to try Darfur criminals, but it has come under fire by rebels and rights groups who see it as a deliberate bid to avoid international justice.
President Omar al-Beshir has vowed never to hand over any Sudanese to international jurisdiction.
Mardhi made the comments after presiding over a ceremony in which rival tribes signed a reconciliation accord. That closed a case in which 126 people of the non-Arab Burgud tribe were killed a year ago in an attack by Arab Rizaigat and Turjum tribes on Hamadah village, in Shiairiyah district, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Nyala.
Mardhi said that after the Eid Al-Fitr feast his ministry and the judiciary would set a date for the trial of those involved in the Hamadah attack.
(ST/AFP)