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Sudan Says ICC Warrant against Defense Minister Means 'Nothing'
[An Nahar] An  International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... warrant issued against Sudan's defense minister means "nothing" and Khartoum does not care about the decision, the foreign ministry said on Thursday. The reaction came after the Hague-based court said it has issued an arrest warrant for Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, for alleged crimes against the civilian population in Sudan's western region of Darfur. "The government will not issue any statement reacting to the ICC decision because we believe it means nothing to us," since the country is not a party to the Rome Statue governing the court, foreign ministry front man Al-Obeid Meruh told Agence La Belle France Presse. "We don't care about any decision coming from the ICC." Hussein, 60, is the sixth person sought by the ICC or before the court for crimes committed in Darfur, where rebel groups drawn from Darfur's non-Arab tribes rose up against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government in 2003. Among those sought is Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir  Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it. The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said in December when he asked for the warrant against Hussein that it would cover crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur from August 2003 to March 2004. Hussein, who was interior minister from 2001 to 2005 and also Bashir's special representative for Darfur from 2003 to 2004, is wanted for allegedly coordinating attacks against civilians in villages in west Darfur. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-02 |
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