Courtesy of the Washington Post."UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 11 -- The International Criminal Court's pretrial judges have decided to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur region, according to an official at the United Nations.
Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be charged by the Hague-based court with war crimes, and the first Arab leader to face the prospect of being tried for atrocities by an international tribunal. The decision, which was first reported Wednesday night on the New York Times' Web site, is expected to be announced within two weeks.
Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said that the charges are politically motivated and that his government will never surrender Bashir for prosecution. "This means nothing to us. We are not going to be bothered by it at all," he said in an interview."
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The official warrant will be largely symbolic. While the indictment is certainly a welcomed one and long overdue, the ICC is a weak institution. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Harun, former Minister of the Interior for Sudan, and Ali Kushayb, alleged leader of the Janjaweed militia, nearly two years ago, and these men have yet to be arrested and brought to trial.
You can see the status of those trials here.
As the state department press conference mentions below, the US has not signed on to the Rome Statute and therefore does not officially recognize the ICC.
Basically, we need Bashir, Harun, and Kushayb arrested, but the UN and the ICC are too weak to get the job done.
You can check the state department's comments on the matter here.
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