Sudan opposition pushes for trials abroad for Darfur war crimes

KHARTOUM, Feb 13 (AFP) — Sudanese opposition parties from across the political spectrum pressed for Darfur war crimes suspects to stand trial abroad, backing the international community against the Khartoum regime.

Hadj Suleiman, one of six arrested Sudanese men, shouts from a cell inside the court in Nyala, September 30, 2004. (Reuters).

Groups ranging from the Communist Party to the Islamist Popular Congress told the independent daily Al-Ayam that the 51 suspects named by a UN commission of inquiry should be tried abroad as they included senior officials.

They warned the government of the dire consequences of opposing a UN Security Council resolution ordering foreign trials.

Ali Mahmoud Hassanain, deputy chairman of the Democratic Unionist Party, one of Sudan’s oldest factions, said he could not conceive of the world body endorsing trials inside Sudan and urged the government to be realistic.

The rival Umma Party of former prime minister Sadek al-Mahdi said it backed trials before the International Criminal Court in The Hague and urged Sudanese to welcome the idea.

Faruq Kadudah of the Communist Party suggested that the trials be held in the presence of Sudanese judges in Arusha, Tanzania, the town where the UN-backed tribunal for Rwanda sits.

“This is a middle-of-the road solution,” Kadudah told Al-Ayam.

Popular Congress Deputy Secretary General Abdullah Hassan Ahmed backed the Arusha proposal, which is also supported by the United States.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan by contrast has called for the ICC to be given jurisdiction over the Darfur cases.

It was left to former chief justice Dafaalla al-Haj Yusuf to defend the government’s refusal to hand over suspects for trial overseas.

“The International Criminal Court is not empowered to hold such trials except in case of failure by the Sudanese judiciary to try a suspect,” said Yusuf, who heads a government-appointed committee of investigation into human rights abuses in Darfur.

Yusuf said his committee was already making the necessary investigations to hold such trials inside Sudan.

The UN commission of inquiry last month found government forces and allied militias responsible for the killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape, and forced displacement in Darfur.

It named 51 of individuals it said ought to be held to account.

Tens of thousands have died and 1.6 million displaced since the government unleashed Arab militias against an uprising launched by ethnic minority rebels two years ago.

The militias carried out a scorched earth campaign against the rebels that the United States says amounted to genocide.