Sudan to name Darfur tribunal
Sudan says it will announce the make-up of a tribunal to hear war crimes committed in Darfur soon, according to a senior official.
Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told a news conference during a trip to China on Saturday: “We are working closely with the African Union. I would expect soon the name of the court is going to be announced, the judge and also the prosecutor-general.”
A committee led by the minister for justice is expected to finalise and make public the details soon.
“I wouldn’t think it would take that long, I wouldn’t think it would take two or three months,” he said.
The UN Security Council in March referred Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. But it also left the door open for Sudan to hold its own trials provided these were credible, saying the ICC should encourage such domestic efforts.
Foreign court rejected
Sudanese officials have rejected the possibility of the country’s citizens being tried in a foreign court, and the Rome Statute that created the ICC says that suspects tried in credible and just proceedings in their own country cannot be tried again at The Hague-based tribunal.
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Ismail said the tribunals would be |
Ismail said the tribunal would be open to scrutiny. “The place is going to be open for the media, it is going to be supervised by Africans,” he said.
A top UN official said on Thursday that the world needed to exert more pressure to resolve the two-year old conflict, which began when rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, complaining of discrimination.
At least 180,000 people have died from violence, hunger and disease, and more than 2 million people have been displaced in the conflict.