ICC delegation to visit Sudan’s Darfur

Feb 26, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — An ICC delegation will be visiting Sudan next week to asses the situation in lawless Darfur and investigate whether crimes against civilians may have been committed.

Till now, the ICC investigations, on killings, mass rapes and other atrocities in western Sudan, are conducted outside Sudan. The witness are interviewed abroad.

An ICC delegation paid an informal visit to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region last year.

But Sudan’s Justice Minister Mohamed al-Mardi told Reuters in an interview on 13 December 2005 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 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.

(ST)