SA broke rules over al-Bashir, says court
The court does not agree with SA’s argument that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had immunity as a sitting head of state
The International Criminal Court has found that SA failed to comply with its request to arrest and surrender Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he visited the country in June 2015 but has decided not to refer this noncompliance to the Assembly of States Parties or the UN Security Council. The Hague-based court did not believe a referral was warranted and “would not be an effective way to obtain the co-operation” of SA, judge Cuno Tarfusser said in reading out his judgment on Thursday. Another reason for the non-referral was that South African courts had already strongly censured the government for its unlawful and unconstitutional decision not to arrest Bashir when he visited the country to attend an AU summit. The government is not appealing against the South African court judgments. SA has five days to file an appeal against the International Criminal Court judgment. Judge Tarfusser stressed, however, that if an appeal was lodged it would have to be against the judgment in its...
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