Word: bashir
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...Wednesday, the ICC issued a warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity - the first time in its history that it has charged a sitting head of state. A charge of genocide was not included, despite ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request and the U.S.'s repeated allegations that al-Bashir is guilty of the crime. ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon accused al-Bashir of "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians...
...Still, there is almost no hope the warrant will be served. "As soon as al-Bashir flies outside Sudan, he could be arrested," Moreno-Ocampo told al-Jazeera on March 3. Which is to say, never...
Those contradictory messages point to what some experts believe is a widening gap between al-Bashir's supporters and other leaders in Sudan, who wouldn't necessarily mind seeing al-Bashir on trial. "An arrest warrant will change the dynamic of Sudanese politics radically," says Christopher Hall, head of Amnesty International's Justice Project. "You have a President of your country who is subject to an international arrest warrant, a fugitive from justice, and the implications for the country will be enormous. My guess is that there will be some very serious thinking among senior members of the Cabinet about...
...Bashir's government is accused of playing a key planning role in the Darfur conflict, which has killed some 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million in five years. In July, chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on allegations that he oversaw plans to exterminate three ethnic groups in Darfur...
...Bashir has sought solidarity among fellow African leaders, a notoriously tight-knit bunch who, as Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu put it in a New York Times editorial on Tuesday, "have so far rallied behind the man responsible for turning that corner of Africa into a graveyard." Despite Sudan's having garnered the support of China and Russia, it is now all but certain that the nation will not manage to persuade the U.N. Security Council to suspend the investigation or force the ICC to postpone its decision for a year...