Court to make Bashir warrant ruling on March 4

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
speaks during a news conference in Istanbul,
Turkey during his visit to that country, August 20,
2008. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

23 February, 2009

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court is expected to announce next month that it will issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

Bashir, the most senior figure pursued by the court since it was set up in 2002, dismisses the allegations and refuses to deal with the ICC, calling it part of a Western conspiracy.

The court said on Monday that it would announce its decision on whether to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir on March 4. Earlier this month, U.N. diplomats and officials told Reuters the ICC had decided to go ahead and issue a warrant.

The court's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requested the warrant for Bashir last July, making him the third sitting head of state to be charged by an international court following Liberia's Charles Taylor and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic.

The court said it had decided to give notice of the date of announcement as there "have been numerous rumours over the past weeks on a possible date and outcome of the decision".

Ocampo accuses Bashir of orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Sudan's western Darfur region, starting in 2003. Ocampo has said this killed 35,000 people outright and at least 100,000 more through starvation and disease.

Khartoum rejects the term genocide and says 10,000 people died in the conflict.

China, the African Union and Arab League have all suggested that an indictment of Bashir could destabilise the region, worsen the Darfur conflict and threaten a troubled peace deal between north Sudan and the semi-autonomous south.