Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have appealed the tribunal’s decision not to indict Sudan’s president on charges of waging genocide in Darfur, a document released yesterday said.
The court charged Omar al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity in March for allegedly orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture, rape and forced expulsions in Darfur Province. But judges said there was insufficient evidence to merit charging him with genocide.
A FIRST
Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state indicted by the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal since it was established in 2002.
But Sudan’s president defiantly refuses to recognize the court’s jurisdiction, and African Union leaders said on Friday they would not arrest or extradite him.
Since the court indicted him and issued an international arrest warrant, al-Bashir has traveled outside Sudan several times without being arrested. The international court has no police force and relies on other countries to execute arrest warrants.
The appeal filed Monday and released yesterday said the judges who rejected the three genocide charges were wrong in applying “an evidentiary burden that is inappropriate for this procedural stage.”
BURDEN OF PROOF
They argue that prosecutors need only prove that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” al-Bashir was responsible for genocide when asking for judges to file charges.
Instead, prosecutors said, the judges applied a “higher level of proof, one that can be identified only with the standard of proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’”
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa yesterday for talks on Darfur with African Union representatives.
FOCUS ON AFRICA?
African officials believe Moreno Ocampo focuses too sharply on their continent. His office has launched prosecutions in four countries — all of them in Africa.
His appeal accuses al-Bashir of mobilizing the entire Sudanese state apparatus with the aim of destroying a substantial part of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur over more than six years.
Fighting in Darfur since 2003 has left as many as 300,000 people dead and driven another 2.7 million from their homes, the UN says.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese