Sudan dismisses Bashir arrest move

12/02/2009| IslamWeb

Sudan's ambassador to the UN has vowed his country will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) amid reports it has issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president.

His comments came after an unnamed diplomat at the UN told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that the ICC had "decided it wants [al-Bashir] arrested".

The New York Times newspaper also earlier reported prosecutors had evidence that al-Bashir had committed war crimes in the country's conflict-ridden Darfur region.

But Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, Sudan's envoy to the UN, told Al Jazeera any arrest warrant against al-Bashir "means nothing to us".

"We are not going to be surprised if this decision is issued today or tomorrow or if it has already been issued," he said.

"Because we know this court is a political court, a politically motivated decision, it will never bother us at all. It means nothing to us. We are in no way going to cooperate with this decision."

ICC prosecutors said last year that they had evidence that al-Bashir had committed war crimes, but the precise charges against the president have not been disclosed.

It would be the first time the ICC has sought the detention of a sitting head of state since it was established in 2002.

Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey said the UN secretary-general's office had said it had not been notified of any ICC decision and declined to comment.

UN urges cooperation

But Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, had on Tuesday urged the Sudanese leader to cooperate with the ICC if a warrant is issued.

"He [Bashir] should fully cooperate with whatever decisions the ICC makes," Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters.

But Abdalhaleem dismissed the ICC as a "hostage to the political will of some powers on the [UN] Security Council".

"If the secretary-general wants us to believe that the court is independent, then he should stop becoming its spokesperson," he said.

Last year Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief ICC prosecutor, asked the court's judges to indict al-Bashir for orchestrating what he described as a campaign of genocide in Sudan's western Darfur region in which 35,000 people were killed in 2003 alone.

UN officials say at least 2.5 million were left homeless and have put the death toll as high as 300,000.

Sudan has rejected the use of the term genocide and said 10,000 people died.

The Sudan government has said that it would continue cooperating with UN peacekeepers in the country even if al-Bashir is indicted, but has warned there may be widespread demonstrations of public outrage.

PHOTO CAPTION

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir speaks during his press conference in Istanbul in August 2008.

Al-Jazeera