KHARTOUM, Sudan, April 2 -- President Omar Hassan Bashir said Saturday that Sudan would not allow any national to be tried in courts outside the country, after the U.N. Security Council voted to send those accused of war crimes to the International Criminal Court for trial.
In a speech broadcast on Sudanese radio, Bashir said the Sudanese justice system was good enough to try any Sudanese for crimes and that trials had already started for crimes in Darfur.
Sudanese students protest a U.N. Security Council decision to send those accused of war crimes in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.
(Beatrice Mategwa -- Reuters)
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"We will never give up any Sudanese national for trial outside Sudan," he told the final meeting of the leadership council of the ruling National Congress party on Saturday. The party dominates government and parliament.
The leadership council of the party made similar comments and rejected the U.N. resolution Friday.
The Security Council voted late Thursday to refer alleged crimes against humanity committed during more than two years of rebellion in the remote Darfur region to the international court.
The United States is opposed to the court but dropped its opposition to the resolution in return for guarantees that its citizens in Sudan would be exempt from prosecution by the court. The United States calls the Darfur violence, which has forced more than 2 million people from their homes, genocide.
A U.N.-appointed commission stopped short of the U.S. declaration but said heinous crimes against humanity had taken place in Darfur, where tens of thousands have been killed in fighting, and gave a sealed list of 51 accused to the U.N. secretary general, recommending they be sent to the ICC for trial.
The list includes senior government and army officials, militia leaders and some rebel and foreign army commanders. The court's prosecutor is expected to request the list and the documents gathered by the commission in the next few weeks.
Neither Sudan nor the United States has ratified the treaty establishing the court.
