Court issues Bashir arrest warrant
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country's western Darfur region.
The issuing of the arrest warrant was announced at a news conference at the home of the court in The Hague in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Sudan immediately rejected the decision of the three-judge panel describing it as part of a "neo-colonialism" plan.
"They do not want Sudan ... to become stable," Mustafa Osman Ismail, an advisor to the Sudanese president, said.
"The court is only one mechanism of neo-colonialist policy used by the West against free and independent countries."
Hundreds of Sudanese took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, to protest against the arrest warrant. The country's ruling party said a "million man march" was planned for Thursday.
Laurence Blairon, a spokeswoman for the ICC, said al-Bashir was accused of "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Sudan; murdering, raping, torturing, forcibly transferring large numbers of the population and pillaging their property".
The ICC and al-Bashir
"Omar al-Bashir's official capacity as a sitting head of state does not exclude his criminal responsibility, nor does it grant him immunity from prosecution," she said.
He is the first sitting head of state to be ordered to face the tribunal since it began work in 2002.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor who called for an arrest warrant to be issued in July last year, said on Tuesday that he had strong evidence against the Sudanese leader.
"We have more than 30 different witnesses who will present how he managed and controlled everything," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo accuses al-Bashir of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups - the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa - and says about 2.5 million people have been victimised by his actions.
The three-judge panel decided there was insufficient evidence to support additional charges of genocide requested by the prosecution.
ICC powers
The ICC has no powers of enforcing its own arrest warrants, but suspects can be arrested on the territory of states who have signed up to the court's founding Rome Statute.
"The court doesn't have a police force and therefore relies on those countries who have signed up to the court ... to use their power and their police forces to make the arrest," Stuart Alford of the war crimes committee at the International Bar Association said.
"As long as he is president he retain power within his borders ... it will be practically difficult to enforce his arrest," he told Al Jazeera.
The president has refused to acknowledge the authority of the court and, ahead of the announcement, he told reporters that any attempt to prosecute him would have "no value".
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Juba in southern Sudan, said that the issuing of the warrant could harm the stability of Africa's largest nation.
"No doubt this is a decision that is going to have far and wide reaching ramifications on Sudan's stability," he said. "Definitely it is going to embolden the rebels in Darfur."
"Also at stake are agreements that have been signed across the country with various rebels, and chief among them the comprehensive peace agreement that has given autonomy to the south."
The Khartoum government signed a deal with rebels forces in the south in 2005 to end 21 years of fighting.
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died since conflict broke out in the western Darfur region in 2003, when ethnic minority fighters took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated administration for a greater share of resources and power.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country's western Darfur region.
The issuing of the arrest warrant was announced at a news conference at the home of the court in The Hague in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Sudan immediately rejected the decision of the three-judge panel describing it as part of a "neo-colonialism" plan.
"They do not want Sudan ... to become stable," Mustafa Osman Ismail, an advisor to the Sudanese president, said.
"The court is only one mechanism of neo-colonialist policy used by the West against free and independent countries."
Hundreds of Sudanese took to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, to protest against the arrest warrant. The country's ruling party said a "million man march" was planned for Thursday.
Laurence Blairon, a spokeswoman for the ICC, said al-Bashir was accused of "intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Sudan; murdering, raping, torturing, forcibly transferring large numbers of the population and pillaging their property".
The ICC and al-Bashir
"Omar al-Bashir's official capacity as a sitting head of state does not exclude his criminal responsibility, nor does it grant him immunity from prosecution," she said.
He is the first sitting head of state to be ordered to face the tribunal since it began work in 2002.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor who called for an arrest warrant to be issued in July last year, said on Tuesday that he had strong evidence against the Sudanese leader.
"We have more than 30 different witnesses who will present how he managed and controlled everything," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo accuses al-Bashir of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three ethnic groups - the Fur, the Masalit and the Zaghawa - and says about 2.5 million people have been victimised by his actions.
The three-judge panel decided there was insufficient evidence to support additional charges of genocide requested by the prosecution.
ICC powers
The ICC has no powers of enforcing its own arrest warrants, but suspects can be arrested on the territory of states who have signed up to the court's founding Rome Statute.
"The court doesn't have a police force and therefore relies on those countries who have signed up to the court ... to use their power and their police forces to make the arrest," Stuart Alford of the war crimes committee at the International Bar Association said.
"As long as he is president he retain power within his borders ... it will be practically difficult to enforce his arrest," he told Al Jazeera.
The president has refused to acknowledge the authority of the court and, ahead of the announcement, he told reporters that any attempt to prosecute him would have "no value".
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Juba in southern Sudan, said that the issuing of the warrant could harm the stability of Africa's largest nation.
"No doubt this is a decision that is going to have far and wide reaching ramifications on Sudan's stability," he said. "Definitely it is going to embolden the rebels in Darfur."
"Also at stake are agreements that have been signed across the country with various rebels, and chief among them the comprehensive peace agreement that has given autonomy to the south."
The Khartoum government signed a deal with rebels forces in the south in 2005 to end 21 years of fighting.
The UN says up to 300,000 people have died since conflict broke out in the western Darfur region in 2003, when ethnic minority fighters took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated administration for a greater share of resources and power.
