Rights groups urge UN security Council to press ICC arrest warrants

June 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Rights groups urged the UN Security council to press Sudanese government to surrender Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The “Justice for Darfur” campaign urged Security Council members presently visiting Khartoum to raise Sudan’s non-cooperation with the ICC, and to adopt a new resolution calling upon Sudan to cooperate fully with the court.

The campaign also is supported by Nobel Laureates Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi.

A UN Security Council delegation is set to visit Darfur on Thursday. Their trip coincides with a briefing to the Security Council in New York by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, on Sudan’s ongoing refusal to cooperate with the court despite its obligation to do so under Security Council Resolution 1593 (2005).

“The mission to Khartoum is a crucial opportunity to press Sudanese leaders, both privately and publicly, to cooperate with the court,” said Niemat Ahmadi of the Save Darfur Coalition.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for the two suspects more than a year ago, on April 27, 2007. The suspects are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape, and forcible displacement.

Despite the seriousness of these crimes, Sudanese authorities have refused to cooperate with the court or surrender the two suspects. At one point the Sudanese Ambassador to the United Nations even called for the ICC prosecutor himself to be tried in court.

In a press statement in Khartoum where he accompanies the visiting U.N. Security Councildelegation, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem accused the ICC’s prosecutor of wrecking the peace process for Darfur on Wednesday.

“Ocampo is destroying the peace process and we demand that this man be held accountable to what he is doing to the peace process in Sudan,” Sudan’s U.N. ambassador.

However, according to Reuters, sources close to the Security Council visit said the envoys, including China’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, questioned Foreign Minister Deng Alor about Darfur. China is a close ally of Sudan.

Alor, who belongs to the southern former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that has shared power with the National Congress of President Omar al-Beshir since the end of a 21-year civil war, said his party favored cooperation.

“I am not talking as a minister of foreign affairs. In this particular issue I’m speaking as SPLM and SPLM calls for cooperation. That’s what I said in my briefing with the ambassadors,” Alor told the press.

(ST)