Put off Bashir trial order, urges Egypt

CAIRO, Tuesday

Egypt is working to defer any indictment of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court on charges of orchestrating war crimes in Darfur, Foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit has said.

Khartoum has said that peace in the war-ravaged Darfur region in western Sudan, where non-Arab rebels took up arms in 2003, would be impossible if the UN Security Council does not stop the ICC from indicting Mr Bashir.

“Sudan is going through difficult circumstances,” Egyptian state news agency MENA cited Aboul Gheit as saying. “We are working on two tracks. One is reconciliation and the other is to delay any charges or the court taking up this matter.” In July ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accused Mr Bashir of genocide in the Darfur region, where international experts say ethnic and political conflict has left 200,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless since 2003.

War crimes

ICC judges are not expected to make a decision on whether to indict Mr Bashir before January. The accusations against Mr Bashir include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Mr Aboul Gheit said Egypt supported Mr Bashir and Cairo had asked the Arab League to make efforts at the United Nations and in the African Union to get the UN Security Council to ask the court to shelve the matter for a year.

Both the Arab League and the African Union have opposed any move by the court to indict Mr Bashir, saying that would hurt chances for a negotiated peace. Sudan has stepped up diplomatic efforts to persuade UN Security Council members to use their powers to defer any indictment. It has also launched a nationwide consultation to come up with its own solution to the conflict.

Sudanese officials have suggested that UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur could be expelled if the judges indict Bashir who says the charges against him are fabricated. (Reuters)