The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor named a Sudanese minister and a militia commander on Tuesday as the first suspects he wants tried for war crimes in Darfur and suggested more could follow.
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked pre-trial judges to issue summonses for Ahmed Haroun, state interior minister during the height of the Darfur conflict, and militia commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb.
"Our work sends a signal: those who commit atrocities cannot do so without impunity," he told a news conference, adding that prosecutors were still gathering evidence of crimes in Darfur.
Haroun is currently Sudan's state humanitarian affairs minister, a post below the full ministerial level. Prosecutors said Kushayb was a commander of the Janjaweed militia who led attacks on towns and villages, where dozens were killed.
In a 94-page filing, ICC prosecutors accused the two of criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in 2003 and 2004, and urged Khartoum to make sure the suspects appear at the court.
Experts say some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others driven from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect. Khartoum says about 9,000 people have died.
UN and African Union observers blame pro-government militias for the worst atrocities. The Sudanese government has denied arming the Janjaweed, which it describes as outlaws. Sudan said the ICC had no right to try the suspects and questioned the evidence gathered by its investigators.
"All the evidence the prosecutor referred to is lies given to him by people who bear arms against the state, bear arms against citizens and kill innocent citizens in Darfur," Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi said in Khartoum.
Human rights groups welcomed the ICC move, particularly as it targeted a minister, the first government figure the ICC has named as a suspect after focusing on rebel leaders in other investigations into Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "I think that it is a very important and welcome development," said Louise Arbour, United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Arbour, whose office has accused Khartoum of systematically failing to protect civilians and bring those responsible for violence to justice, said she hoped the move would be a "strong deterrent" against continuing bloodshed.
She said that she expected the investigations to continue and that charges would be brought against high level officials from both the government and the rebel side.
Moreno-Ocampo said investigations were continuing and noted his office was monitoring the spill-over of violence from Darfur into Chad and the Central African Republic. He said fighting in Darfur made investigations difficult, but his team had taken 100 witness statements in 17 countries.
The ICC is only supposed to prosecute when national courts are unwilling or unable to act, but rights groups say Khartoum's own investigations into Darfur have been largely for show.
The UN Security Council asked the ICC in March 2005 to launch an investigation into the violence in Darfur, which the United States has called genocide, a charge Khartoum denies. The charges against the two suspects do not include genocide, but Moreno-Ocampo said he could not rule out that this might be included in future investigations.
The ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court, started work in 2002 and is now supported by 104 nations, although still not by Russia, China and the United States.
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