Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the UN Security Council on May 28th that the Sudanese government is protecting suspects wanted for war crimes instead of arresting them to face trial.

By Thijs Bouwknegt

It is now up to the Council “to take any action it may deem appropriate,” the court said in a news release.

The ICC has no police force and depends on national authorities and member states to make arrests. In 2007, the court asked Sudan’s government to arrest Ahmad Muhammad Harun and Ali Kushayb for crimes committed in Darfur, where the UN estimates that fighting has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 since 2003.

Three years ago, the court charged Harun, Minister of State for the Interior, with 42 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Kushayb, an alleged senior Janjaweed commander, faces 50 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The formal notification by pre-trial judges at the ICC is aimed at increasing international pressure on Sudan and its president Omar Hassan al Bashir, who was also charged with war crimes by the ICC in March 2009.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in April asked judges for a ruling, arguing that no measures to arrest either suspect had been taken.

Although 111 countries are signatories to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, Sudan is not one of them. As a UN member state, however, Sudan is required “to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council” and must “cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the court and the prosecutor,” in accordance with a Security Council resolution that referred the case to the ICC in 2005.

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