Monday, May 28, 2007

ICC prosecutor tells Sudan to hand over Darfur suspects

from: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article22080
By Wasil Ali
May 28, 2007 (CAIRO) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo expressed his confidence that the arrest warrants against the two Darfur war crime suspects will be executed.

Ocampo made these remarks following his unannounced meeting with the Secretary-General of the Arab league Amr Musa in Cairo.
Earlier this month the judges of the ICC have decided to issue arrest warrants against Ahmed Mohamed Haroun the Sudanese minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib. Ocampo had originally requested the judges to issue a summons to appear against the two Haroun and Kosheib.
However the ICC judges determined that a summons to appear will not be sufficient to ensure the suspects appearance in court. Sudan has so far rejected the judges’ decision and vowed not to hand over the suspects.
Ocampo briefed Musa on the activities of the ICC in Darfur in an apparent bid to rally Arab support for any looming showdown with Sudan over the handing over of the two suspects. Ocampo told reporters in Cairo that the ICC will “take all necessary measures should Sudan insist on defying the extradition request”. However Ocampo declined to elaborate on the kind of measures he will take.
The Sudanese ambassador in Cairo Abdelmoniem Mabrouk dismissed Ocampo’s remarks as contradictory to the principle of “complementarity” as defined by the Rome Statue which allows ICC to investigate only in the absence of “genuine national proceedings”. Mabrouk stressed that Sudan has already conducted its own judicial proceedings in Darfur war crimes.
Ocampo is expected to bring up the issue of Sudan’s non-compliance with the court in his semi annual briefing to the UN Security Council in mid-June. It is not clear if a new UN resolution will be drafted requesting that Sudan hand over the suspects.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statue, but the UN Security Council triggered the provisions under the Statue that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Global Day for Darfur

http://www.sudaneseonline.com/cgi-bin/sdb/2bb.cgi?seq=msg&board=100&msg=1177887221

اوقفوا قتل الابرياء فى دارفور,ارجعوا الفقراء النازحين الى قراهم,عاقبوا القتلة. شعارات قالها الصغير والكبير فى اليوم العالمى للتضامن مع اهل دارفور فى مدينة فيلادلفيا نهار اليوم, حيث تجمع ماقدرتةالمنصة بالف مشارك ومشاركة على اقل تقدير امام مبنى حكومة المدينة,وقد خاطب المسيرة مجموعة من المتحدثين بينهم د. على بحر الدين على دينار رئيس تجمع ابناء دارفور ود. عز الدين سليمان بخيت رئيس التجمع الوطنى للسودانيين بفيلادلفيا..وبعدها توجهة المسيرة سيرا على الاقدام الى ساحة الاستقلال حيث غنى المغنون, وتبرع
المتبرعون ونادى الجميع بحل قضية دارفور الان وليس غدا.
عمر ادريس-Philadelphia, PA
USA