THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — More than 15 years after the U.N. Security Council sent the situation in Darfur for investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first trial over war crimes in Sudan has begun.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan compared Tuesday’s hearing to iftar, the Muslim celebration of breaking the fast during Ramadan — which began over the weekend — saying it was an “iftar of sorts for the millions who have been waiting for this day to come.”
Former militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, told the International Criminal Court he was innocent of 31 counts of murder, pillaging, rape and torture in the Darfur region of western Sudan at the start of the hearing.
“I reject all of these charges, I am innocent of all of these charges,” he told The Hague-based court. He fidgeted with his blue suit and red tie while Khan played a series of videos about the now decades-old conflict.
The 72-year-old is alleged to have led the government-backed Janjaweed militia in western Darfur, targeting non-Arab ethnic groups in a conflict that is still ongoing. According to prosecutors, he helped recruit and organize the Arab militia group that engaged in an ethnic cleansing program and specifically directed attacks against four villages — Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Deleig — between 2003 and 2004. Kushayb surrendered to authorities in the neighboring Central African Republic in June 2020 and has been in ICC custody ever since.
The start of the trial comes only days after the U.N. Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. In a statement, the Geneva-based organization wrote that the commission plays “a crucial and unique role in collecting and preserving evidence of human rights violations and abuses with a view to promoting accountability and transitional justice.”
Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute, which created The Hague-based court in 2002. However, on March 31, 2005, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1593, which referred the matter to the ICC, compelling Sudan to cooperate with the investigation. It was the first time the Security Council had used this power; Khartoum has refused to recognize the court’s jurisdiction in the case.
“The International Criminal Court has no place in this crisis at all,” the Sudanese government said in a statement at the time.
Victims’ groups heralded the day of the first international trial to stem from the conflict.
“April 5, 2022, is a momentous day for victims and survivors in Darfur who never stopped fighting to see the day the cycle of impunity is broken,” Mohamed Ali Mossaad, the executive director for the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, said in a statement. There are 142 official victims in the case, represented by their own legal counsel.
Nicknamed the Land Cruiser War because of the widespread use of Toyota Land Cruisers on both sides of the conflict, hostilities first broke out in 2003. Non-Arab rebel groups began attacking government targets, accusing the national government of oppressing the mostly Black African groups.
In response, the government in Khartoum mobilized so-called “self-defense militias” which attacked civilian populations. The United Nations estimates that some 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million people have been displaced.
The court has issued eight arrest warrants for crimes related to the nearly 20-year war. One man has since died and the court failed to confirm charges against another man, Abu Garda, the leader of one of the rebel groups.
Four other men, including the country’s former President Omar al-Bashir, are wanted by the court for atrocities committed during the Darfur conflict. The current authorities announced last year that they planned to turn the 78-year-old, who is currently serving a two-year prison sentence in Sudan for corruption, over to the court but that has yet to happen. Two other men, the former state minister for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Haroun and former defense minister Abdulraheem Mohammed Hussein, are also currently in Sudanese custody.
Another man wanted by the court for crimes during the conflict, Abdallah Banda, turned himself in before being released to await trial and has since disappeared. Kushayb has made repeated requests to be released from pretrial detention since he surrendered in 2020, all of which have been denied.
The trial is expected to last months.
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