Minister named as Darfur war crimes suspect

In a move aimed at ending the impunity enjoyed by killers in Darfur, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has named a Sudanese government minister and a militia commander as suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

While human rights campaigners welcomed the announcement in The Hague, doubts remain over whether the step - should it lead to a trial - will help to end the killings.

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In naming the Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb and Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Harun, the chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo signalled he had evidence to prove a chain-of-command link between the government and killing squads in Darfur.

"Our work sends a signal: those who commit atrocities cannot do so without impunity," Mr Moreno-Ocampo said, adding that investigators were continuing to monitor Darfur and overspill from the conflict into Chad and the Central African Republic.

Khartoum pre-empted the release of the report by saying the ICC had no jurisdiction in Sudan. "All the evidence the prosecutor refers to is lies given to him by people who bear arms against the state, bear arms against citizens and kill innocent citizens in Darfur," the Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi said.

Even though Sudan is not a signatory to the 1998 treaty that established the ICC, Mr Moreno-Ocampo is acting on UN Security Council instructions.

A panel of judges at the ICC is expected to decide in the next three months whether to issue arrest warrants against Mr Harun and the Janjaweed commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, whose nom de guerre is Ali Kushayb.

The UN estimates that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million others driven from their homes in Darfur since the conflict worsened in 2003. Khartoum says 9,000 people have died.

Human rights groups welcomed yesterday's announcement, particularly as it targets a minister, the first government figure the ICC has named as a suspect after focusing on rebel leaders in other investigations into Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "The clear message from these prosecutions is that the world is watching, and the high and mighty are not immune," Gareth Evans, of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said.

But this form of international justice - in which crimes can be prosecuted as a conflict continues - is untried. The ICC has learnt to its cost the danger of issuing arrest warrants before a conflict is settled.

The court has requested the arrest of the top five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which is in talks with the Ugandan government aimed at ending a 19-year conflict. However, the talks have stalled in the past few months amid a call from the LRA that the arrests warrants be lifted.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo disagreed that issuing arrest warrants can be counter-productive. "Since the arrest warrants were released - but also since other international efforts - the LRA has lost its safe haven and has been forced to the negotiating table," he said. However, the LRA leadership is not yet under arrest.

Mr Harun, who was interior minister in the 2003-04 period investigated by the ICC, is accused of putting in place, funding and helping to run militia groups in all regions of Darfur. Mr Moreno-Ocampo said: "Harun personally delivered arms to militias. In early 2003, in Mukjar, Harun met privately with Kushayb and afterwards made a speech. He said that since the children of Fur had become rebels, all the people and their possessions had now become booty."

Ali Kushayb was the "colonel of colonels" in the Wadi Salih locality of west Darfur and is accused of leading attacks that claimed hundred of lives at Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Arawala. He is facing trial in Khartoum over other charges being investigated by Sudanese courts.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said: "At Kodoom, civilians were fired on as they fled. In Arawala in December 2003, Ali Kushayb personally inspected a group of naked women before they were raped by men in military uniform. A witness - victim - said she and the other women were tied to trees and repeatedly raped."