ICC team heads to Khartoum as part of Darfur investigation
Jan 22, 2007 (THE HAGUE) — A team of investigators from the International Criminal Court will head to the Sudanese capital within days, the court’s prosecutor said Monday, as he prepares to present his first Darfur war crimes case to judges.
Moreno-Ocampo did not give further details of the mission to Sudan, which was being organized in consultation with Sudanese authorities.
Under ICC rules, Moreno-Ocampo must present an outline of his case and supporting evidence to judges at the Hague-based court. They can then issue arrest warrants for suspects or a summons ordering them to appear in The Hague.
He also must establish that suspects he wants to charge are not already being prosecuted in their own country. Sudan has rejected ICC intervention, saying it would try human rights suspects itself. Sudan’s own Darfur war crimes court has announced sentences, but few other details about its workings.
How or whether any arrest warrants would be executed if suspects are in Sudan is unclear. The government in Khartoum does not recognize the ICC and has long resisted efforts to station U.N. troops in Darfur.
Speaking to reporters late last year, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said the ICC, “will never intervene in Darfur.”
“We are not part of the Rome convention, so we do not take part in this court,” he added, referring to the treaty that set up the court.
Despite Sudan’s opposition to the court it allowed ICC investigators to visit Khartoum last year and interview two senior government officials.
In March 2005, the U.N. Security Council asked Moreno-Ocampo to open an investigation into alleged atrocities committed in Darfur during 2003 and 2004.
His investigators have visited 17 countries to interview witnesses and victims but have not traveled to Darfur itself.
Despite the highly publicized investigation and a peace deal signed last May, atrocities have continued in the remote western province.
Over the weekend, rebels claimed that government planes bombed villages in northern Darfur. The government denied the allegation.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have fled their homes in Darfur since 2003 when rebels stemming from ethnic African tribes took arms against the Arab-dominated government they accuse of neglecting the region.
Khartoum is accused of responding with indiscriminate bombings of suspected rebel zones, and of having armed the janjaweed, militias of Arab nomads who are blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the conflict.
Violence has only worsened since the peace agreement signed last May, and Khartoum opposes a U.N. Security Council resolution for some 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace an overwhelmed African Union force in the region.
(AP)