Word: alie
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Ever since the International Criminal Court began pursuing allegations of war crimes in Darfur in 2005, its investigators have pursued a government-backed militia leader known as "the colonel of colonels." Ali Muhammad Ali Abd Al Rahman - a.k.a. Ali Kushayb - was high in the pantheon of the Janjaweed militia when a warrant was finally issued for his arrest in February 2007. Investigators said he led raids that left hundreds dead and countless homes destroyed. According to one witness, Ali Kushayb once inspected a line of naked women just before they were raped by his men. There were critical grumblings that...
...more than a surprise when Khartoum announced last week that it had, in fact, been holding Ali Kushayb for several months and that he would be put on trial. "The timing of this particular claim about an arrest is certainly interesting," says Christopher Hall, head of Amnesty International's International Justice Project. Sudan claims that the investigation into Kushayb gained speed after a special prosecutor was appointed in August. But Hall and many others suspect that Ali Kushayb's trial - if it ever happens - is just the Sudanese government's latest gambit in what has become a full-blown campaign...
...haven't actually seen anything formal," Hall says of Ali Kushayb's trial. "One of the things that Amnesty International is asking for immediately is that Sudan permit a trial observer to attend the proceedings and for a copy of the charges and any other court documents related to the case." On Tuesday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch derided Sudan's domestic investigations into the Darfur conflict as nothing more than "window dressing." The group's Africa director, Georgette Gagnon, said that Sudan was clearly trying to block the ICC's work. "No one should be fooled...
...Bashir government warned that Sudan could cancel all its agreements with the U.N. if the ICC case goes ahead. "It is not true that the government is trying to show the world they are trying to do something - in fact, they are doing something," Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali Sadiq Ali told TIME. However, just for good measure, he repeated the government's stance that "it will not hand over a Sudanese citizen to the outside...
...country where the crimes allegedly occurred doesn't pursue the cases itself. Since the ICC got the Darfur docket in 2005, Sudan has repeatedly assured the outside world - not very persuasively, experts say - that it is trying Darfur atrocities cases itself. The ICC itself remains unconvinced that Ali Kushayb's arrest, or Sudan's prosecution of low-level officials in Darfur, is sincere. "No cases involving serious violations of international humanitarian law have been tried and therefore our case is still admissible and the arrest warrants must be executed," says Florence Olara, a spokeswoman in the ICC's prosecutor office...