KHARTOUM: Sudan will hand longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court along with two other officials wanted over the Darfur conflict, officials said Wednesday.
Bashir, 77, has been wanted by The Hague-based ICC for more than a decade over charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region. The United Nations says 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict, which erupted in the vast western region in 2003.
The “cabinet decided to hand over wanted officials to the ICC,” Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi was quoted as saying by state news agency SUNA, without giving a time frame.The cabinet’s decision to hand him over came during a visit by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan, but it still needs the approval of Sudan’s ruling sovereign council, comprised of military and civilian figures.
On Wednesday, Khan met with the leader of the sovereign council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, as well as Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, its deputy chair. Daglo said Sudan “is prepared to cooperate with the ICC,” SUNA reported.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who also met with Khan, said Wednesday that “Sudan’s committment to seek justice is not only to abide by its international commitments, but it comes out of a response to the people’s demands”.
But it remains unclear if Bashir would be extradited to face trial in The Hague, or could remain in Sudan.
Volker Perthes, UN Special Representative to Sudan, said Wednesday that the ICC “can help” with the “establishment of (a) Special Court for Darfur”, without giving further details. The transitional authorities have previously said they would hand Bashir over, but one stumbling block was that Sudan was not party to the court’s founding Rome Statute.
But last week Sudan’s cabinet voted to ratify the Rome Statute, a crucial move seen as one step towards Bashir potentially facing trial.
ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah did not comment on the announcement, saying Khan was “in Khartoum to discuss cooperation matters”, but that the prosecutor would hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
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