SA appears before ICC tribunal to answer for letting Bashir off the hook
SA will seek to fend off accusations that it failed to honour its Rome Statue obligations to the International Criminal Court — which the government has made moves to leave
The Hague — SA will on Friday seek to defend its failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted on charges of genocide, at an unprecedented hearing before international war crimes judges. It will be a humbling moment for Pretoria, one of the leading voices in the creation of the International Criminal Court, whose lawyers will be fending off accusations that it failed in its obligations to the tribunal when it failed to arrest Bashir when he came to SA for an African Union summit in Johannesburg in June 2015. To the frustration of the ICC’s prosecutors, Bashir remains in office and at large despite two international warrants for his arrest issued in 2009 and in 2010. He faces 10 charges, including three of genocide as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity in the western Darfur region. The deadly conflict broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority groups took up arms against Bashir’s Arab-dominated government, which launched a brutal counter-insurgency. At le...
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