Sudan's former president to be handed over to ICC

The deposed president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, will be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), as agreed by members of the ruling Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) alliance.

FFC leader Ibrahim al-Sheikh stated that they agreed to hand al-Bashir over to the war crimes tribunal, once his trial in Sudan has been completed.

If al-Bashir escapes prosecutions for his crimes at home, he will be punished by the International Criminal Court abroad, added al-Sheikh, who previously stood with al-Bashir in the National Congress Party.

Until now, the military council had rejected the hand over of the former president, saying that this issue would be decided by the first democratically elected government within three years.

During a visit to Khartoum this week, EU senior officials asked the Sudanese government about its position on al-Bashir's extradition to face the ICC.

The deposed president, former defense minister Abdel Rahim Hussein, and former governor of North Kordofan Ahmed Haroun, face arrest warrants issued by the ICC for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed in Darfur during the counterinsurgency operation that began in 2003.



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