Sudan to hand over ex-Prez al-Bashir to International Criminal court for war crimes trial

Sudan foreign minister Mariam al-Mahdi on Wednesday said that the country will hand over former President Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC) along with a couple of other officials who are wanted over the Darfur conflict in which at least 3,00,000 people were reportedly killed and 2.5 million displaced. As per reports, charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the Sudanese region are levelled against Bashir, who has been wanted by the ICC for more than a decade. The former President who ruled autocratically over Sudan for three decades is in a correctional centre since December 2019, along with ex-defence minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and Ahmed Haroun, a former governor of South Kordofan. 

Sudan is committed to extraditing Omar al-Bashir

The minister also said that this decision was taken by the cabinet, however, he did not give any time frame when Bashir would be handed over to the ICC. The consensus to extradite him was reached after ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan visited Sudan and met Mahdi on Tuesday, August 10. However, the cabinet is expected to confirm the decision to extradite him when it meets the sovereign council, the joint military and civilian body that has run the country since Bashir was deposed in 2019. 
According to a media report, Khan also met the sovereign council's leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, its deputy chair on Wednesday and was assured of every kind of cooperation related to the matter. Meanwhile, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, after meeting Khan, said that he is committed to providing justice to the people of his country. 

The Darfur conflict of 2003

The Darfur War started in 2003 following discrimination against non-Arab groups in the country and rebels took up arms against the Omar al-Bashir government. Following this, Bashir gave a free hand to Janjaweed militia to carry out what human rights groups called a "scorched earth policy." They allegedly raped, tortured, looted, and killed people in villages all over Darfur and after four months of mass nationwide protests in 2019, the military overthrew the government, arresting Bashir and his aides. Sudan has been led since August 2019 by a transitional civilian-military administration that has vowed to bring justice to victims of crimes committed during Bashir's reign. 

Image Credits: AP