THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — Defense lawyers told the International Criminal Court on Thursday that their client was working as a pharmacist during the ongoing conflict in Sudan and played no role in any atrocities.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, has been charged with 31 counts of murder, pillaging, rape and torture by the world’s only permanent court for atrocity crimes, but he denies all of the charges against him.
Abd-Al-Rahman was “not a member of the government … not a general … not a politician,” defense attorney Cyril Laucci told The Hague-based court. His client sat expressionless behind him in a black suit and a checked blue shirt.
Rather, he operated a small pharmacy in a market in a remote Sudanese village, Laucci said, and was too insignificant to play a role in the conflict.
Prosecutors say the 74-year-old helped to recruit and organize for the Janjaweed militia, which engaged in an ethnic cleansing program and specifically directed attacks against four villages — Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Deleig — between 2003 and 2004.
He took “a strange glee in a feared reputation,” chief prosecutor Karim Khan told the court when the trial opened in April 2022.
During the previous 18 months, 56 witnesses have testified against Abd-Al-Rahman, many claiming he personally participated in some of the atrocities.
He turned himself in to authorities in the Central African Republic in 2020, 13 years after a warrant was first issued for his arrest. During his first appearance in court, he told judges the charges against him were “untrue.”
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.
The country is again in the middle of a bloody conflict. At least 9,000 people have been killed and more than 5.6 million driven from their homes since fighting erupted again in April.
“History sadly seems to be repeating itself,” Natalie von Wistinghausen, the counsel for victims in the case, told the court in June, when she began her arguments. Many of the 600 confirmed victims in the case were prevented from traveling to The Hague to testify by the ongoing bloodshed.
Khan told the United Nations Security Council in July that his office was looking into new crimes that may have been committed during the surge in violence.
Fighting first erupted in the Darfur region of Sudan when ethnic Africans rebelled against Khartoum's Arab-led government. Then-President Omar al-Bashir responded by sending the Janjaweed, a group of mostly Arab nomads known for riding horses or camels, to put down the uprising. According to the United Nations, the conflict left some 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million.
Abd-Al-Rahman is the fourth person to appear before the ICC on charges related to the Sudanese conflict but the first to be brought to trial. The court has also issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, but the current government in Khartoum has refused to turn him over to the court.
Two of al-Bashir's senior officials, Ahmad Harun and Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, also remain in custody in Sudan.
Charges against another man, Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, were not confirmed in 2010. Charges were confirmed against two other men, Saleh Mohammed Jerbom, who was killed in the conflict in 2013, and Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain, who voluntarily appeared before the court in 2010 but is now missing.
Follow @mollyquell
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
