Suspect Named In Darfur War Crimes Case
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THE HAGUE (Reuters) - 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.
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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.
The Sudanese government has been clearing out villages of African Zaghawa, Masaalit, and Fur communities in Darfur since February 2003 in a fierce campaign of “ethnic cleansing.” Government soldiers and Arab nomad militia, called “janjaweed,” frequently surrounded groups of villages, often encircling them with trenches. In the first phase of the coordinated attacks, government air forces using Russian-built MiG and Antonov jets and attack helicopters, bomb the villages. In the second phase, the soldiers and militia move into the villages to loot, burn, kill, rape, and abduct. Bodies are left out in the open or thrown into the trenches. In Jijira Adi Abbe village alone, 267 civilians were killed in such an attack.