Sudanese officials tells France ‘no dealings with ICC’
October 7, 2008 (PARIS) – A senior Sudanese official said today that his government has been unsuccessful in their efforts to convince French officials to unconditionally support the African Union (AU) request to suspend the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Darfur crimes.
Nafi told reporters during a press conference in Paris that Sudan is not a state party of Rome Statue and will therefore not cooperate with.
“We will not hand over any Sudanese citizen to this court and Sudan will not stand before its judges to challenge its jurisdiction he said.
In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.
The ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. It was only last week that judges have started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.
Sudan and a number of regional organizations including the African Union (AU), Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned Ocampo’s request and called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution deferring Al-Bashir’s indictment.
But the UNSC has been divided on the issue particularly the Western countries on the council hesitant to support such a move.
The French president Nicolas Sarkozy speaking in New York during the UN General Assembly meetings last month made it clear that his country will not support a deferral resolution unless certain conditions are met.
“France wants the Sudanese authorities to radically change their policies. It is now up to Mr. Al-Bashir to determine what exactly he wants” Sarkozy said.
“We want to deploy the international force in Darfur to stop the scandalous situation in which tens of thousands are dying in this part of Africa. We want peace in Sudan as well as peace and the territorial integrity of Chad… people in Darfur have the right to live and we cannot accept the situation as it is currently” he added.
Sarkozy warned Sudan that France wants to see concrete steps taken before it would support a suspension of ICC move.
“There would be no recourse to invoking Article 16 unless there is radical and immediate change in Sudanese policies” he said.
“If Sudanese authorities do change; totally change their policies then France would not be opposed to using Article 16” the French president added.
Nafi said that French officials believe “we need have to a channel of communication with the ICC and we want an indirect one. We said there are a number of legal institutions, lawyer syndicates and countries that expressed their willingness to speak with ICC”.
However Nafi cautioned that while “France and other Western countries believe peace must before the suspension”, Sudan thinks it should be the other way round and compared the situation with the hen and the egg paradox.
The Sudanese official also reiterated that the Sudanese judiciary is able to investigate all the crimes in Darfur and prosecute any individual regardless of his rank.
He further said that Sudan welcomes any experts who want to verify the ability of Sudanese courts to try Darfur crimes but rejected any participation of foreign judges in the trials.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UNSC triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.
(ST)