Sudan’s Bashir heads to Chad on Tuesday for fourth time since ICC arrest warrant
April 9, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir will fly to Chad on Tuesday to attend the Great Green Wall summit, an official in Khartoum confirmed.
He added that Bashir will be accompanied by presidential affairs minister Bakri Hassan Saleh, foreign minister Ali Karti and minister of Environment and Forestry Hassan Abdel-Gadir Hilal who is already in Chad for the ministerial meeting.
The summit was originally scheduled for last month but was delayed amid speculations that it was postponed over controversy related to Bashir’s presence.
Bashir has been wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) since 2009 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.
Last month Chad’s foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat denied that his government asked Bashir not to attend and dismissed reports of international pressure to shun the Sudanese leader.
This will be Bashir’s fourth visit to Chad, which is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the ICC.
African countries rallied behind Bashir and issued resolutions stating that they will not cooperate with the ICC in apprehending the Sudanese leader even if Bashir visits countries which have ratified the Rome Statue.
This has enabled Bashir to visit African ICC signatories such as Kenya, Malawi, Djibouti and Chad without incident.
During Chad’s thorny relations with Sudan, president Idriss Deby vowed at one point to execute the arrest warrant against Bashir, rejecting African Union (AU) resolutions granting him immunity. However, as relations improved Deby reversed his position.
(ST)