War crimes court prepares Darfur trials

The International Criminal Court expects to finalise its first case by February against suspects in war-torn Darfur who bear the greatest responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The United Nations’ court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo gave few details of the investigation except to say that it focused on “a series of incidents in 2003 and 2004, during a period and in a location where the highest number of crimes were recorded”.

As a result of the investigation, he said, the prosecutor’s office “has been able to identify some of the gravest criminal incidents and some of those individuals who could be considered to bear the greatest responsibility”.

“The evidence provides reasonable grounds to believe that the individuals identified have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the crimes of persecution, torture, murder and rape,” Ocampo said in a report to the UN Security Council.

The court is the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal and acts as a court of last resort.

Under the Rome statute which created the court, the prosecutor must first assess whether the government – in this case Sudan – is building the same case. If not, the prosecutor would then present his case to a pre-trial judge who would review the evidence and decide whether the case should go forward.

Ocampo said his office asked the Sudanese government for an update on its national proceedings in November and had not yet received a reply, although he said there were indications of developments including the arrest of 14 people suspected of serious violations of humanitarian law and human rights abuses.

“These indications do not appear to render the current case inadmissible, therefore the (prosecutor's) office is seeking to finalise the preparation of the submission to the judges by February 2007,” he said.

Ocampo said he would, nonetheless, try to visit Sudan in January to gather further information and seek access to those arrested and relevant documents.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people displaced in three years of fighting in Darfur between African rebels and government troops allied with Arab militia known as janjaweed.

The conflict has spread into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic and is now in “free fall”, with the prospect of six million people in a hopeless situation without food or protection, outgoing UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland has said.

Ocampo said that since the Central African Republic was a party to the court and Chad would become a party on January 1, his office was gathering information on crimes in both countries.

UN secretary general Kofi Annan has accused the Sudanese government of failing to protect citizens in Darfur from killings, rape and other violence and warned it may be held accountable for those acts in the future.

Last month, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir agreed in principle to allow a “hybrid” African Union-UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur, though he later reiterated his opposition to the deployment of UN troops.