Mystery surrounds the appearance of Darfur rebel commanders at ICC

February 4, 2010 (WASHINGTON) – Two rebel commanders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) have reportedly backtracked from an agreement to appear voluntarily before the judges to face charges related to attacking African Union peacekeepers in 2007.

On Saturday sources told Sudan Tribune that the two individuals will appear this week before the ICC to fulfill a summons to appear issued for them in connection with the AU peacekeepers assault in 2007 that left 12 soldiers dead and wounded eight others according to court documents.

The names of the two other rebels have not been disclosed but they are believed to be Abdallah Banda, a former JEM army general who now leads a JEM splinter group and Saleh Jarbo from Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM)-Unity faction.

Last week, the Kuwait based Al-Jarida newspaper quoted Labeed Abdal today who is a Kuwaiti attorney as saying that he has been picked by the ICC judges to represent the defense in the rebel cases though he did not specify which of the two he has been asked to represent.

Abdal added that he will travel to The Hague on Tuesday to attend the first session which was likely to be a procedural hearing in which the date for the confirmation of charges will be set.

The Dubai based Al-Arabiya TV citing well placed sources said that Banda and Jarbo failed to appear at the court by a previously agreed Feb. 3, deadline. It said that both men were expected to go to Kenya and Chad respectively, and from there to The Hague.

The ICC refused to comment on the report when reached by Sudan Tribune.

The leader of the Darfur United Resistance Front (URF) Bahr Idriss Abu Garda dismissed the report saying that it is not true.

“This information is not true; I dismissed it in an interview with the Arabian TV channel. The only party that can summon these people is the ICC, up until now they didn’t announce anything or even decide to do so. You can’t know anything till the court announces. You remember in the past before I went to the court, several names were mentioned, at that time they were saying Commander X, sometimes Commander Alsasi, these talks were many, but they all turned out to be just suppositions” he told Sudan Radio Service (SRS).

Garda is the only one of the three rebel commanders who appeared at the ICC to face the charges.

The confirmation of charges of Abu Garda took place last October and a decision is expected to be made shortly on whether the evidence present warrants that he should stand trial. The URF chief denied that he ordered the attack on the AU troops.

Sudan dismissed Garda’s appearance as a “theatrical play” by the ICC prosecutor to pressure Khartoum into cooperating with the court.

The Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is charged by the Hague based court on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. This week the appeals chamber reversed the decision by the pre-trial chamber that excluded genocide charges requested by the prosecutor.

(ST)