SUDAN: Sudanese Justice minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi says the International Criminal Court(ICC) has no right to prosecute Sudanese citizens suspected of committing crimes against humanity

Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi said that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had no right to prosecute individuals suspected of committing crimes against humanity in the war-torn Darfur region. Sudanese Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi said on Tuesday (February 27) that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had no right to prosecute individuals suspected of committing crimes against humanity in the war-torn Darfur region. "We believe that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction to try any Sudanese," Mardi said shortly after ICC prosecutors named a former Sudanese state interior minister and a militia commander as the first suspects it wants tried for war crimes in Darfur "We maintain our position that the crimes committed in Darfur fall under the jurisdiction of the Sudanese judiciary, which carries out investigations and weighs the evidence and presents it to the independent and impartial court that issues verdicts on them," Mardi added. Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked pre-trial judges to issue summonses for Haroun, state interior minister during the height of the Darfur conflict, and militia commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb. Haroun is currently Sudan's state humanitarian affairs minister, a post below the full ministerial level. Kushayb was a commander of the Janjaweed militia, who prosecutors said led attacks on towns and villages, where dozens were killed. In a 94-page filing, prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe the two bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against civilians in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. Experts say some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others driven from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect. Khartoum says about 9,000 people have died.

ITN Source | February 28, 2007