IRD Condemns South Africa's Failure to Arrest Indicted War Criminal President of Sudan
"It has been five years since the ICC brought charges against al-Bashir and two other Sudanese officials for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. It is past time that they were sent to The Hague for judgment." -- Faith J. H. McDonnell, IRD Religious Liberty Program Director
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2015 /
Christian Newswire/ -- The South African government today disregarded a court order by the South African Litigation Centre to hold Sudan President and wanted war criminal Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir while the Pretoria High Court decided whether or not to arrest him on charges issued by the International Criminal Court. The Pretoria High Court issued orders for al-Bashir's arrest hours after he departed the country.
Al-Bashir was in Johannesburg for the African Union Summit. Before the summit, the ICC issued a press statement urging the South African government "to spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrant." South Africa is party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
IRD Religious Liberty Program Director Faith J. H. McDonnell commented:
"The Khartoum regime's ongoing impunity in the face of multiple genocidal wars, costing the lives of some 5 million people and displacing another 8 million, against its own people – in what is now South Sudan, in Darfur, and twice in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State – is a stain on the entire world community.
"It has been five years since the ICC brought charges against al-Bashir and two other Sudanese officials for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. It is past time that they were sent to The Hague for judgment.
"The South African government has followed the shameful pattern of other governments that have refused to either prohibit al-Bashir from entering their nation and refused to detain him once he is there.
"A number of African countries have failed to cooperate with the ICC, accusing the court of bias and racism against African leaders. That is particularly absurd in the case of Sudan. Al-Bashir only considers himself African when it benefits him. He and the Islamists in Khartoum claim to be Arabs and it is they who have been abysmally racist against the black African people groups of Sudan and South Sudan."
