ICC to rule on South Africa’s refusal to arrest Sudan’s Bashir

June 16, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – The War crimes court in The Hague will decide next month on the refusal of the South African authorities to arrest Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir who was in Johannesburg for an African Union meeting in June 2015.

In a statement released on Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said the Pre-Trial Chamber II of the Court ” issued an order convening a public hearing on 6 July 2017 at 14:00 (The Hague time) for the delivery of its decision under Article 87(7) of the Rome Statute, on the compliance by the Republic of South Africa with the Court’s request for arrest and surrender of Mr Omer al-Bashir to the ICC.”

“The Chamber invited the Prosecutor and Representatives of South Africa to attend the hearing,” the ICC further said.

The ICC says that South African government has failed to comply with its obligations to cooperate with the ICC as a signatory of the tribunal’s founding Rome Statute.

But Pretoria points that Sudanese leader has immunity as a head of state.

The ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda hopes that the judges agree with its request to report Pretoria to the UN Security Council for non-compliance and eventual sanctions.

Also, she hopes that such condemnation will dissuade other ICC members from ignoring its arrest warrants and stop encouraging Bashir’s to infringe it and keep travelling across the world.

“I hope (that the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber) will provide the basis for improved coordination between my Office, the Court, States Parties and this Council in future efforts to arrest and surrender the Darfur suspects,” Bensouda said in her report to the UN Security Council on 8 June.

In addition, she said the Pre-Trial Chamber asked Jordan to provide submissions for its non-compliance with the ICC arrest warrants for al-Bashir who was in Jordan on 29 March for the 28th Arab League Summit in Amman.

” At Jordan’s request, on 2 June 2017, the Chamber decided to extend the deadline for these submissions to the end of this month,” she further said.

However, on its decision of 2 June, the Pre-Trial Chamber says that Jordan has already told them that “Bashir enjoys sovereign immunity as a sitting Head of State under the rules of customary international law” and that that immunity had not been waived by Sudan nor by the Security Council of the United Nations in its Resolution 1593(2005)”.

(ST)