Cairo - The Sudanese government has agreed to bring to
justice all those who are accused of committing crimes in Darfur and
to seek a political resolution to the conflict in the province, the
Arab League said Wednesday.
The Cairo-based league adopted in an emergency meeting of its
foreign ministers on Saturday a plan to defuse the crisis between
Sudan and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The crisis erupted after the ICC chief prosecutor Luis-Moreno
Ocampo asked the court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir on Darfur war crimes charges.
The league Secretary-General Amr Mussa held talks in Khartoum on
Sunday to coax the Sudanese government into accepting a plan that
tackles the political and legal aspects of the conflict in Sudan's
western province.
Sudan has agreed to continue its examining of crimes and
violations of human rights committed in Darfur that were proven by
investigations conducted by the government, an Arab League statement
said.
It is not clear, however, if two Sudanese officials indicted by
ICC last year would stand trial within the Sudanese judiciary system.
Sudan has also agreed to form special courts and appoint a special
prosecutor to deal with Darfur cases and to harmonize its own
criminal laws with international human rights law.
Legal experts from the African Union, the Arab League and the UN
would ensure that Sudanese laws and legal proceedings relating to
Darfur cases are comprehensive.
The Arab League will ask the UN Security Council to suspend all
measures taken under a 2005 resolution, which referred the Darfur
file to the ICC, according to the statement.
This would mean that the Security Council would ask the ICC to
delay the process of indictment for 12 months.
The ICC accuses the Sudanese president of being behind a genocide
campaign in Darfur in which about 35,000 are believed to have
perished and 2.5 million to have been displaced.
The Sudanese government allied itself with the Arab Janjawid
militia to quell an uprising staged in 2003 by mostly African rebels
representing Darfur's settled farming communities.
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