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Case: The
Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir
Situation:
Darfur, Sudan
Today, Pre-Trial Chamber I
of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a second
warrant of arrest against the President of Sudan, Omar Hassan
Ahmad Al Bashir, considering that there are reasonable grounds
to believe him responsible for three counts of genocide
committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups,
that include: genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious
bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on
each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about
the group’s physical destruction.
This second arrest warrant
does not replace or revoke in any respect the first warrant of
arrest issued against Mr Al Bashir on 4 March, 2009, which shall
thus remain in effect. In the previous arrest warrant, the
Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe
that Mr Al Bashir is criminally responsible for five counts of
crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible
transfer, torture and rape) and two counts for war crimes
(intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population
as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part
in hostilities, and pillaging).
On 4 March, 2009, Pre-Trial
Chamber I had rejected the Prosecutor’s application in respect
of the crime of genocide. On 6 July, 2009, the Prosecutor filed
an appeal against this decision. On 3 February, 2010, the
Appeals Chamber rendered its judgment on the Prosecutor’s
appeal, reversing, by unanimous decision, Pre-Trial Chamber I’s
decision of 4 March, 2009, to the extent that Pre-Trial Chamber
I decided “not to issue a warrant of arrest in respect of the
charge of genocide in view of an erroneous standard of proof”.
The Appeals Chamber directed the Pre-Trial Chamber to decide
anew whether or not the arrest warrant should be extended to
cover the charge of genocide. Applying the standard of proof as
identified by the Appeals Chamber, Pre-Trial Chamber I concluded
today that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Al
Bashir acted with specific intent to destroy in part the Fur,
Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.
Pre-Trial Chamber I
requests the Registrar of the Court to prepare a supplementary
request for co-operation seeking the arrest and surrender of Mr
Al Bashir for the counts contained in both the first and the
second warrant of arrest, and transmit such a request to the
competent Sudanese authorities, to all States Parties to the
Rome Statute, and to all the United Nations Security Council
members that are not States Parties to the Statute. The
Registrar is also directed to transmit additional requests for
the arrest and surrender of Omar Al Bashir to the Court to any
other State as may be necessary.
The situation in Darfur was
referred to the International Criminal Court by the United
Nations Security Council’s resolution 1593, on 31 March, 2005.
In this situation, four cases are being heard: The Prosecutor v.
Ahmad Muhammad Harun (“Ahmad Harun”) and Ali Muhammad Ali
Abd-Al-Rahman (“Ali Kushayb”); The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan
Ahmad Al Bashir; The Prosecutor v. Bahar Idriss Abu Garda and
The Prosecutor v. Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh
Mohammed Jerbo Jamus.
The
International Criminal Court is the only permanent international
court established with the mission to help put an end to
impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of
concern to the international community as a whole, namely the
crime of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and
thus to contribute to the prevention of such crimes.
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