The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, branded a public enemy in Sudan after calling for the arrest of its head of state, said on Thursday he was also investigating alleged war crimes by rebel groups seeking to overthrow the Khartoum regime.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo was on Thursday the target of a new wave of demonstrations in Khartoum after filing evidence this week that he said showed Omar al-Bashir, the president, was responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the province of Darfur.
More than 1,000 demonstrators arriving outside Khartoum’s Republican Palace were handed placards showing Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s face covered with a red cross and, as speakers fired up the crowd, they began to tear up his picture and chant “Death to Ocampo”.
In New York, Mr Moreno-Ocampo stood by his decision to seek the arrest of Mr Bashir but said he was also focusing on attacks believed to have been carried out by rebel groups.
“The rebels cannot commit crimes. They have to help the court and provide information on the attacks and, if necessary, make arrests,” said the prosecutor, who was at the United Nations to mark the 10th anniversary of the Rome treaty that established the ICC.
He said he had the names of two rebel commanders alleged to have been involved in an attack on African Union peacekeepers in the Darfur town of Haskanita last September. “Any attack on peacekeepers is a crime under my jurisdiction,” he said.
Vehicles marked with the initials of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement took part in the attack in which 12 peacekeepers were killed.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said in his latest report on Darfur that he was concerned by reports that the JEM used child soldiers in an attack near Khartoum in May in which 200 people were killed.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s statement failed to sway Sudan, a non-signatory to the Rome treaty, which said it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the court. With his action against Mr Bashir, “he is inviting the rebels to be more intransigent and not to join the peace process”, Abdalmahmoud Mohamad, Sudan’s envoy to the UN, told the Financial Times.
Sudan is urging the Security Council, which mandated Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s investigations on Darfur, to set aside any action by the ICC, whose judges will decide within the next three months whether to proceed with the requested arrest warrant against Mr Bashir.
Insisting that the head of state had immunity under international law, Mr Mohamad said: “The Security Council should nullify this move. It would affect the peace process and the deployment of Unamid [the joint UN-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur].”