International court issues warrant for Sudan's president

Judges with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague have issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over his alleged war crimes in the region of Darfur in western Sudan.

ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon announced the decision Wednesday, saying the warrant against al-Bashir is for charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

"He is suspected of being criminally responsible … for 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, and pillaging their property," she said.

This is the first warrant the ICC has issued for the arrest of a head of state who is still in power.

"Omar al-Bashir's official capacity as a sitting head of state does not exclude his criminal responsibility, nor does it grant him immunity against prosecution before the International Criminal Court," she said.

The judges said the crimes were allegedly committed during a five-year anti-insurgency campaign by the government of Sudan against the Sudanese Liberation Movement Army (SLM-A), the Justice and Equality Movement and other armed groups opposing the government of Sudan in Darfur.

The campaign started soon after an April 2003 attack on al-Fashir airport, allegedly "as a result of a common plan agreed upon at the highest level of the government of Sudan by Omar al-Bashir and other high-ranking political and military leaders," Blairon said.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed or displaced

The campaign continued until at least mid-July 2008, when the ICC applied for the arrest warrant, she said. The United Nations says the fighting has killed about 300,000 people and forced nearly three million others out of their homes.

The conflict erupted when ethnic African tribesman took up arms, complaining of decades of neglect and discrimination by their government.

The Arab-dominated Sudanese government admits mobilizing "self-defence militias" after rebel attacks in 2003 but denies any links to the Janjaweed, militiamen accused of trying to remove black Africans from large swaths of territory.

In March 2005, a top Janjaweed militia member in Sudan told New York-based Human Rights Watch that the Sudanese government directed and supported attacks on ethnic Africans in Darfur.

Despite the arrest warrant, the Sudanese president plans to attend the Arab summit in Qatar at the end of this month, an official in Sudan's foreign ministry said.

"This [ICC] decision was not a surprise to us, but all the mechanism of the state will react. We in the cabinet will meet tomorrow to see what steps are to be taken," al-Bashir's foreign affairs adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail told state TV.

The ruling party leadership will meet later Wednesday to decide its course of action, he said.