Prosecutor says growing isolation of Sudan’s president bodes well for his ultimate arrest

Prosecutor cites isolation of Sudan’s leader

UNITED NATIONS — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Friday that the Sudanese president’s recent avoidance of traveling abroad to high-level events bodes well for his ultimate arrest for alleged war crimes in Darfur.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo also raised the possibility of prosecuting other Sudanese officials who actively deny and cover up the government’s involvement in alleged war crimes during the 6 1/2-year conflict in the vast western Sudanese province.

He was cagey when asked about the possibility of prosecuting Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Mohamad, who has vehemently defended President Omar al-Bashir, but he stressed that no one is exempt.

Mohamad responded by calling Moreno-Ocampo a “mercenary of death and destruction” and accusing him of “lies” and trying to politicize his office.

Moreno-Ocampo said al-Bashir’s decision to skip the U.N. General Assembly, the Organization of Islamic Conference and other meetings is a sign of his growing isolation because of the increasing global support for enforcing the court’s arrest warrant.

“Respect for the court decision to issue an arrest warrant against president al-Bashir sends a clear message: president al-Bashir will face justice,” he told the U.N. Security Council. “Any leader committing crimes will face justice.”

Moreno-Ocampo stressed that political power did not provide immunity for former president Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor of Liberia and former Rwandan prime minister Jean Kambanda.

The prosecutor accused al-Bashir of trying to shift international attention from the crimes committed in Darfur to “new pressing issues,” especially the conflict between the Arab-dominated government in the north and the mostly Christian oil-rich south which is slated to hold a referendum on independence in January 2011. A fragile 2005 peace agreement ended the more than two-decade-long north-south civil war, which left more than 2 million dead.

Al-Bashir “will exacerbate such conflict if it can shift your attention from the crimes committed in Darfur,” Moreno-Ocampo warned the council.

“I will need the full support of the council to ensure that the attention remains on the need to arrest the persons who are the object of arrest warrants and on the need to end crimes in Darfur,” the prosecutor said.

Al-Bashir was charged in March with orchestrating war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, where U.N. officials estimate up to 300,000 people have died and about 2.7 million have been displaced since 2003. He has refused to recognize the tribunal’s authority,

Moreno-Ocampo said his office has evidence showing that al-Bashir “is covering up his own crimes.”

“Whoever is part of this cover-up could be prosecuted by the ICC,” he said. “That’s clear. There is no immunity … As soon as someone is personally contributing to the commission of crimes, sometimes killing people, sometimes covering up the crime, (they) could be prosecuted by the ICC.”