Bashir refuses to deal with ICJ ‘as it is a political court,’ says lawyer

KHARTOUM/JUBA: Sudan’s government and rebel groups in Darfur agreed on Tuesday that all those wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) should appear before the tribunal, but a lawyer for ousted President Omar Bashir rejected the plan.
The lawyer said Bashir refused to deal with the ICC as it is a “political court” and that Sudan’s judiciary was able to deal with any case.
Bashir, who was toppled after mass protests last year, is wanted by the ICC for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, but Information Minister Faisal Saleh did not specifically name him when announcing the move.
The government and the rebel groups reached an agreement during a meeting in South Sudan’s capital Juba that included “the appearance of those who face arrest warrants before the International Criminal Court,” said Mohamed Al-Hassan Al-Taishi, a member of Sudan’s sovereign council.

Al-Taishi also said that the two sides agreed to create a Darfur special court to investigate and hear cases including those investigated by the ICC. That could suggest that some will be tried in Sudan but no details were immediately available.
Bashir has said the allegations made by the ICC, the world’s first permanent court for prosecuting war crimes, are part of a Western conspiracy.
A spokesman for the ICC declined to comment. The Hague-based court issued its first arrest warrant for Bashir in 2009 —
its first for a sitting head of
state — and a year later issued a second one.