Pro-Sudan groups ask ICC judges to reject genocide appeal

July 27, 2009 (WASHINGTON) — Two lawyers acting on behalf of two pro-government Sudanese groups asked the judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to dismiss an appeal by the prosecutor for including counts of genocide against president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I refused to endorse genocide charges in his request for issuing an arrest warrant for Bashir in connection with war crimes committed in Darfur. The ICC warrant includes only seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This month the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed an appeal asking the appellate chamber to reverse the Pre-Trial Chamber I finding on the genocide counts.

Sudan Workers Trade Unions Federation (SWTUF) and the Sudan International Defense Group (SIDG) have contracted Sir Geoffrey Nice, former senior trial attorney at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, and Rodney Dixon to represent them in the proceedings relating to the Darfur case.

Khartoum has denied any links to the two groups but a number of SIDG secretariat members have met with Sudanese officials last year who vowed to support them.

Sudan has said it may deal with the court through a third party, which may include an ICC state party or a law firm.

The two British attorneys said in a filing posted on the court’s website that they represent citizens of Sudan including tribal leaders of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa, which the ICC prosecutor alleged that Bashir orchestrated a campaign to exterminate them.

They further said that they gathered signatures from 2 million Sudanese citizens who oppose the ICC investigation in the Darfur crisis.

“The Applicants accept that grave crimes have been committed in Darfur by all parties to the conflict as noted in the findings of the UN International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur and the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of Human Rights Violations by Armed Groups in Darfur, established by the Government of Sudan,” the filing reads.

“It is accepted that those responsible, including the President, should be held to account if there is evidence of their involvement in crimes,”.

The filing makes references to prior requests by the counsels to the Pre-Trial Chamber I asking it not to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir but the judges rejected it.

The lawyers ask the Appeals chamber to allow them to take part in the proceedings as “amici curiae”.

“The Appeals Chamber could benefit from submissions contrary to the Prosecution’s arguments which seek, in an adversarial setting, to highlight the flaws in the Prosecution’s submissions”.

They further said that they have reports and papers of figures “of great repute (most of them not friendly to the President) who accept that crimes were committed but deny that they could have amounted to genocide”.

“In particular, the Appeals Chamber’s attention is drawn to the reports and papers of Alex de Waal, Edward Thomas, Prof. William Schabas, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, Bona Malwal, and Prof. Peter Bechtold,”

Furthermore, they assert that there is “wide ranging opposition to the Prosecutor’s charges against President Al Bashir from within the AU and from other countries and organizations, at a time where there has been no specific Security Council action either to implement the warrant of arrest,”

The British lawyers asked the appeals chamber to consider the material they submitted and to uphold the Pre-Trial Chamber I finding on genocide.

The appeals chamber may reject the filing on the grounds that both pro-Sudan groups are not a “party” to the proceedings on the Darfur case which would mean that their supporting documents would not be considered when deciding on the prosecutor’s appeal.

(ST)