Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir fr

On 4 March 2009, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) when Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a warrant for the arrest of the Sudanese President.

The decision to issue the warrant of arrest follows an Application made by the Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo on 14 July 2008. In its decision of 4 March 2009, the Pre-Trial Chamber indicted al-Bashir as an indirect (co-) perpetrator for five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, rape) and two counts of war crimes (direct attacks on civilians and pillaging). Although the majority of the Chamber found that the Prosecutor had failed to provide reasonable grounds to prove the specific intent required for Genocide, they found sufficient evidence to believe that al-Bashir coordinated a five-year counter-insurgency campaign, a “core component” of which was the unlawful and intentional direct attack of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa civilian population.

The situation in Darfur was originally referred to the Prosecutor by the United Nations Security Council on 31 March 2005, in Resolution 1593. Two other warrants of arrest in connection with the Darfur conflict were issued on 27 April 2007 for current Sudanese Minister, Ahmad Muhammad Harun and former Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Muhammad Al Abd-Al-Rahman (“Ali Kushayb”).

The situation in Darfur, Sudan