The Sudanese government has arrested Ali Kushayb, a notorious Janjaweed militia leader charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with orchestrating mass murder in Darfur. Sudan will conduct its own trials for suspects implicated in crimes in Darfur but it remains unclear when they might take place.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, better knows as Ali Kushayb, is behind bars. "Ali Kushayb is now in police custody," a government spokesperson said on Monday. The regime remains silent on where he is being kept and what crimes he is accused of: "We are investigating him to see if he has committed crimes in Darfur or not," Sudanese Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat says.

Image improvement
A special prosecutor to probe crimes in the war-torn region was appointed in August and the justice minister said that Khartoum will conduct its own investigations into crimes in war-torn Darfur. The former commander of the "Janjaweed" militia Ali Kushayb, however, faces a 51-count indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Khartoum, who is not a party to the ICC, had always declined to arrest him and refused to cooperate with the ICC. Kushayb's present detention and Sudan's claim to prosecute him may be linked to the proceedings launched against President Omar al-Bashir in July. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, accuses him of genocide. The move to arrest Kushayb seems a way for Sudan to improve its image abroad and try to head off the potential prosecution of the country's president.

But the ICC has another outstanding arrest warrant against Ahmad Haroun, Sudan's minister of humanitarian affairs. This senior politician and ally of Bashir faces charges of rape and murder in Darfur. Haroun, however, has "no official complaints lodged against him and will not stand trial," the justice minister says. Analysts say that unless the president detains Haroun as well, Bashir may not be able to win a UN Security Council deferral of the proceedings against him.

Ali Kushayb
Human rights groups have said the militia leader, Ali Kushayb, the ‘colonel of colonels', led attacks of thousands of gunmen on civilians and ordered villages to be burned to the ground and the women in them raped. The ICC charges him personally with 504 murders, 20 rapes and forcing 41,000 people from their homes. Kushayb claims his innocence.

It is not the first time Kushayb was arrested. On 1 October 2007 the government said that Kushayb had been held in custody for one month for what the government described as "suspicion of violating Sudanese laws" and for criminal acts in Darfur. He was then released due to lack of evidence against him.

Darfur's civil war began in 2003 when black African rebels rose against Khartoum's Arab-dominated regime. The uprising was squashed by government-backed militias claiming at least 300,000 lives. Sudan's regime argues that Kushayb acted alone in Darfur and denies any responsibility for the Janjaweed militia.

Local Courts
Khartoum says Sudanese law contains the provisions necessary to try anyone for war crimes, but the regime does not specify when the trials could resume. Since August the Special Criminal Court on the Events in Darfur (SCCED) is being revitalised. The court was established on 7 June 2005 - one day after the UN referral of the Sudan case to the ICC - to show the government's ability to handle prosecutions itself. The court, with seats in Nyala, Fashir and Geneina, was erected as a substitute for the ICC.

Many NGOs have argued that the primary purpose of the SCCED is to undermine the work of the ICC. Since its inception, the court has only looked at relatively minor charges such as theft, not violations of international law or crimes against humanity.