Trial of Darfur militia leader scheduled for April

The trial of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, a militia leader accused of atrocities in the Sudanese conflict in Darfur, will begin next April, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on Wednesday.

Abd-Al-Rahman, 70, an ally of ousted Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, was a senior commander of the Janjaweed militia, a notorious armed group created by the government.

He will be the first suspect to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in this bloody conflict.

The first trial chamber of the court, composed of three judges, “scheduled the opening of the trial (…) for April 5, 2022,” the ICC said in a statement.

The United Nations says 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million people were displaced in the 2003-4 Darfur conflict.

Fighting erupted when black African rebels, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up arms against Bashir’s Arab-dominated regime.

Profile of Omar al-Bashir, the former Sudanese president. By (AFP)

Khartoum responded by releasing the Janjaweed, a force drawn from nomadic tribes in the region.

In April 2007, the Hague-based court issued an arrest warrant for Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb’s war.

He fled to the Central African Republic (CAR) in February 2020 when the new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICC investigation.

Four months later, he surrenders voluntarily.

In May this year, the ICC held hearings to assess whether there was enough evidence for a full trial.

Prosecutors detailing 31 charges against Abd-Al-Rahman told the court that in August 2003, with the support of government forces, he was responsible for brutal attacks on villages in the Wadi Salih region.

The men committed murders, rapes and destroyed homes, and many who fled were later tracked down and killed in cold blood, they said.

Abd-Al-Rahman personally killed up to three male detainees with a “stick or ax shaped object,” according to the indictment.

Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades, was ousted in April 2019 after months of protests.

He has been wanted by the ICC for more than a decade on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In August, Sudan and the ICC signed a cooperation agreement, an important step towards any trial of the former leader.