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Al-Bashir will 'face justice' before ICC: president judge

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The president of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Thursday that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will eventually face justice in The Hague. Speaking in London before the British House of Commons, Judge Sang-Hyun Song addressed controversy surrounding the ICC arrest warrant issued one year ago: The Rome Statute created the possibility for a political body – the Security Council – to refer situations to the Court. In the case of Darfur, this is what happened in March 2005. Once a situation comes before the Court, we must let justice follow its course. States must accept that judges cannot and will not take political considerations into account.Responding to questions, Song went on to compare the al-Bashir warrant with the successful surrender of Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor to the international criminal tribunals. Addressing supporters, al-Bashir said that he would continue to travel despite the warrant, though he declined an invitation to attend extraordinary summit of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Nairobi next week.In February, the ICC Appeals Chamber ordered the Trial Chamber to reconsider adding an additional charge of genocide to the al-Bashir warrant. ICC prosecutors appealed the decision not to charge al-Bashir with genocide in July. The warrant, which charges al-Bashir with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, has been a source of tension, with Egypt, Sudan, the African Union, and others calling for the proceedings against al-Bashir to be delayed, and African Union leaders agreeing not to cooperate with the ruling. Al-Bashir is accused of systematically targeting and purging the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa, three Arabic-speaking ethnic groups, under the pretext of counterinsurgency since 2003.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 05, 2010 (boomark / email).