Sudan takes another step towards handing over Omar al-Bashir to the ICC
Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum court in August 2019. Reuters
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Sudan will hand over Omar El-Bashir to the International Criminal Court.
The announcement was made on Wednesday August 11 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the second day of a visit by the new ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, to Khartoum.
The former Sudanese president has for years been the subject of two international arrest warrants issued by the ICC for crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.
In recent months, the Sudanese authorities had increased signs of cooperation with the Court.
Today, it is finally the Council of Ministers which made the decision.
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Foreign Minister
Mariam al-Mahdi
announced this during a meeting with the ICC prosecutor.
These are three former Sudanese leaders accused of crimes in Darfur who should therefore be handed over to the ICC:
former President Omar al-Bashir
, but also
Ahmed Haroun
, ex-governor of South Kordofan State, and
Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein
, the former Minister of Defense.
It remains to be seen when and under what conditions the transfer will take place.
Last week, the Sudanese cabinet had already taken a step towards greater cooperation with the Court in The Hague by announcing that it had passed a bill aimed at ratifying the Rome Statute of the ICC.
"Justice for the crimes committed in Darfur"
After the Sudanese revolution, the transitional authorities made a verbal commitment to promote the appearance of Omar El-Bashir before the ICC.
But until now, he was still held in Khartoum, in Kober prison, convicted of corruption and prosecuted in another case, that of the coup that brought him to power in 1989.
No reaction from the ICC for the moment.
But "
justice for the crimes committed in Darfur
" had become the ultimate goal of the court, in the words of former prosecutor Fatou Bensouda when she visited Sudan a few months ago.
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Sudan
International justice
Omar al-Bashir