ICC reverses Al-Bashir Genocide ruling
The appeal chamber of the ICC has today issued a ruling reversing a decision of the pre-trial chamber on the Al-Bashir case. Last year the pre-trial chamber had decided that the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide. The appeal court has now concluded that
The decision by the pre-trial chamber not to issue a warrant in the respect of the charge of genocide was materially affected by an error of law.
The case will now go back to the pre-trial chamber for them to rule on whether to add genocide to Bashir's charge sheet. The president of Sudan is already charged with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, extermination, torture and rape.
Sudan's response was, as would be expected, critical of the ruling claiming that it was motiviated by politics and designed to harm democratic elections due to take place in April. A senior information ministry official was quoted as saying:
This procedure of the ICC is only to stop the efforts of the Sudanese government towards elections and a peaceful exchange of power.
Labels: genocide, ICC, Omar al-Bashir, Sudan
posted by Fiona Donson @ 12:17
