Sudan agrees Arab League plan to defuse Darfur-ICC crisis

Jul 23, 2008, 13:09 GMT

Cairo - The Sudanese government has agreed to bring to justice all those who are accused of committing crimes in Darfur and to seek a political resolution to the conflict in the province, the Arab League said Wednesday.

The Cairo-based league adopted in an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers on Saturday a plan to defuse the crisis between Sudan and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The crisis erupted after the ICC chief prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Darfur war crimes charges.

The league Secretary-General Amr Mussa held talks in Khartoum on Sunday to coax the Sudanese government into accepting a plan that tackles the political and legal aspects of the conflict in Sudan's western province.

Sudan has agreed to continue its examining of crimes and violations of human rights committed in Darfur that were proven by investigations conducted by the government, an Arab League statement said.

It is not clear, however, if two Sudanese officials indicted by ICC last year would stand trial within the Sudanese judiciary system.

Sudan has also agreed to form special courts and appoint a special prosecutor to deal with Darfur cases and to harmonize its own criminal laws with international human rights law.

Legal experts from the African Union, the Arab League and the UN would ensure that Sudanese laws and legal proceedings relating to Darfur cases are comprehensive.

The Arab League will ask the UN Security Council to suspend all measures taken under a 2005 resolution, which referred the Darfur file to the ICC, according to the statement.

This would mean that the Security Council would ask the ICC to delay the process of indictment for 12 months.

The ICC accuses the Sudanese president of being behind a genocide campaign in Darfur in which about 35,000 are believed to have perished and 2.5 million to have been displaced.

The Sudanese government allied itself with the Arab Janjawid militia to quell an uprising staged in 2003 by mostly African rebels representing Darfur's settled farming communities.