Sudan to question suspected minister over Darfur war crimes
March 23, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan is to re-interrogate a top official named by the International Criminial Court as a suspect in alleged war crimes in the troubled western region of Darfur, press reports said Friday.
Prosecutor General Salah Abu Zeid said that new evidence had called for the re-interrogation of Ahmed Haroun, secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, who had been cleared of war crimes in Darfur earlier this month.
Abu Zeid also announced that three security officials accused of murdering Darfur civilians and burning down their villages, including fellow ICC-suspect and militia leader Ali Kosheib, are to stand trial.
In February, ICC prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo named Kosheib and Haroun (secretary of state of the interior at the time of the alleged crimes) as Darfur war crimes suspects.
Moreno-Ocampo began investigating accusations of persecution, torture, rape and murder in June 2006. He has focused on events between 2003 and 2004, considered the most violent period in the Darfur conflict.
Khartoum reacted to the ICC’s move by insisting that its judiciary was fully competent to handle the cases, rejecting the legitimacy of any foreign court seeking to try Sudanese nationals.
It simultaneously announced that Kosheib had been detained since late November and that Haroun had been interrogated and cleared of any wrongdoing.
According to the United Nations, at least 200,00O people have been killed and more than two million displaced since the civil conflict erupted in Darfur in February 2003. Some sources say the death toll is much higher.
(AFP)