Sudan will hand over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) three former leaders including the ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir, wanted in particular for "genocide" and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Darfur, said Wednesday the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
"The Council of Ministers has decided to hand over the wanted persons to the International Criminal Court," Minister Mariam al-Mahdi said, according to the official Suna news agency, during a meeting with the new attorney general of the court based in La Haye, Karim Khan, visiting Khartoum for a week.
300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced
The conflict in Darfur, a region in the west of the country, started in 2003 between the predominantly Arab regime of Omar al-Bashir and rebels from ethnic minorities who considered themselves marginalized.
It left about 300,000 dead and nearly 2.5 million displaced, mostly during the first years of violence, according to the United Nations.
Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in April 2019, after months of unprecedented popular movement.
In February 2020, the transitional power put in place after his fall had made a verbal commitment to promote his appearance of Omar al-Bashir before the ICC, which issued arrest warrants against he and other figures of the old regime, for "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" in Darfur.
The other two regime officials who will be handed over to the ICC are the ex-governor of South Kordofan State, Ahmed Haroun, and the former defense minister, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, wanted for the same reasons.
Arrested after the fall of Bashir, they are currently detained in Sudan.
The need for "full and unlimited cooperation" with the ICC
A landmark peace accord signed in October 2020 between the transitional government and several rebel groups insisted on the need for "full and unlimited cooperation" with the ICC.
Sudanese cabinet ministers voted last week to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC.
The Sudanese minister stressed on Wednesday "the importance" of her country's cooperation with the ICC "to obtain justice for the victims of the Darfur war".
Former president detained in Khartoum
Already convicted of corruption in December 2019, the former president is currently being held in Kober prison in Khartoum.
He is also on trial by the Sudanese justice for his role in the coup d'état which brought him to power in 1989 but his trial has been repeatedly postponed since July 2020, the lawyers for the accused advancing procedural arguments.
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