The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he expects judges to add a charge of genocide within weeks against Sudan's "fugitive" President Omar Hassan al Bashir.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir last March on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur conflict, including murder, rape and torture, but ruled it had insufficient grounds for a charge of genocide.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who appealed the ruling, said the continued plight of 2.5 million people in Darfur camps justified the label of genocide.

"The people in the camps are still suffering what I consider genocide," the prosecutor said. "And in a few weeks the appeal chairman will rule on my request to include genocide charges. I think I will win."

The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people have been killed since conflict erupted in Darfur in 2003, although Sudan rejects that figure.

Ocampo said conditions in the camps amounted to a "slow death" which the world had lost interest in.

Bashir, who is seeking re-election in April, has denied responsibility for wide-scale killing in Darfur and said the arrest warrant against him was part of a plot against Sudan.
Although Bashir has brushed off the charges and remained in office, Ocampo said his authority was diminished.

"President Bashir is indicted. He is a fugitive president," he said, citing what he said were refusals by South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Turkey and Venezuela to host the Sudanese leader since the warrant was issued.
"It's a process of marginalisation.... Bashir's destiny is to face justice -- in two years or 20 years."

Read more on the situation in Darfur on The Hague Justice Portal