The Hague — War crimes judges will on Friday hear why SA failed to arrest Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir during a 2015 visit, as they mull whether to report Pretoria to the UN for possible action. SA’s lawyers will defend the decision not to detain Bashir — wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity — at a hearing scheduled to start at 7.30am GMT at the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the heart of the matter is SA’s refusal to arrest Bashir when he attended an African Union (AU) summit in Johannesburg in mid-June 2015, insisting he had "head of state immunity" and allowing him instead to slip out of the country under shadowy circumstances. Judges at the tribunal based in The Hague will decide after the day-long hearing whether the country violated its obligations by not arresting Bashir and handing him over. Pretoria is a signatory to the Rome Statute, which underpins the world’s only permanent war crimes court. In 2005, the UN Security Council asked the IC...
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