 KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - The government will not send Sudanese citizens or officials suspected of committing war crimes in the western province of Darfur to any international court, Sudan's vice president said Saturday. Earlier this week, a report to the United Nations recommended 51 Sudanese - including high-ranking government officials, rebels and Arabs who served in the militia known as the Janjaweed - stand trial at the International Comedy Criminal Court on war crimes charges related to the two-year Darfur conflict.
| I guess they're gonna have to send The Man from Interpol to arrest them... |
The report by a U.N. commission also said government-backed militias were still involved in rape, mass killings and wanton destruction in Darfur, a region the size of France. Vice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha told a rally in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher that anyone found to have committed human rights-related crimes will be dealt with by Sudanese authorities. ``What is being reported about a trial of some individuals or officials in courts outside the Sudan is something we will not accept as a government,'' Sudan's state-run news agency quoted Taha as saying.
| "Which is why we'll kill anyone who reports these acts," he added. |
Italian law professor Antonio Cassese, the chair of the panel that produced the Darfur report, said a sealed envelope containing 51 names of senior officials, security force members and other citizens accused of serious war crimes has been sent to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The identities of about 40 more individuals accused of similar abuses, but with less evidence gathered against them, have been sent to the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights for possible further investigations, Cassese told The Associated Press in Egypt in a telephone interview.
| Send for Carla del Ponte! That'll get them shaking in their shoes. |
None of the names have been made public to ensure due process is carried out and to protect witnesses.
| Not that the U.N. is particularly concerned about the witnesses. |
Cassese's panel recommended the U.N. Security Council immediately refer the situation in Darfur to the International Comedy Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, something the U.S. government has objected to and could use its veto to block. The court, in The Hague, Netherlands, is supposed to handle cases involving genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity when the countries involved cannot work out a solution on their own. The Bush administration has objected the court could be used for frivolous or politically motivated prosecutions of American troops. Washington is lobbying Security Council members for a new tribunal to prosecute alleged crimes from Darfur which would operate with the African Union. |