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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Aug 29 2010 - 14:46:02 EDT
INTERVIEW-Bashir using tactics to avoid arrest-ICC prosecutor
Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:17pm GMT
* Moreno-Ocampo says Bashir seeks to threaten the West
* Says Sudanese authorities should arrest Bashir
By Adrian Croft
LONDON, Aug 29 + - The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor
has accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of abusing African
hospitality and threatening the West as he seeks to avoid arrest on genocide
charges.
Kenya chose not to arrest Bashir on the ICC charges when he visited the
country on Friday for a ceremony marking the East African nation's new
constitution. [ID:nMCD730308]
The ICC, to which Kenya is signed up, accuses Bashir of war crimes and
genocide in Sudan's Darfur region, where the United Nations estimates
300,000 people have died in a humanitarian crisis resulting from a
counter-insurgency campaign.
Bashir denies the charges, saying they are part of a Western conspiracy.
"President Bashir is fighting for his freedom using different tactcs," ICC
Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters in an interview on Saturday
during a visit to London.
Those tactics included "abusing African hospitality" by going to
neighbouring countries, "threatening Western countries with affecting the
south (Sudan) and offering carrots to foreign business, to French, American
and English companies," he said.
U.N. Security Council members should implement a strategy to counter
Bashir's tactics, Moreno-Ocampo said.
South Sudan is widely expected to choose to split from the north in a
January referendum after a 2005 peace accord ended a two-decade-long civil
war -- separate from the Darfur violence.
ICC judges reported Kenya to the U.N. Security Council for allowing Bashir's
visit. The Hague-based ICC has no police force and relies on member states
to enforce its arrest warrants.
But last month, the African Union criticised the ICC's warrant for Bashir
and called for its suspension.
CALL FOR SUDAN TO ACT
Moreno-Ocampo said he hoped Bashir would travel further afield so the arrest
warrant against him could be implemented "in the air" -- presumably meaning
a diversion of his plane.
Sudan's U.N. ambassador called Moreno-Ocampo a "terrorist" in 2008 after an
ICC spokeswoman said the court had planned to arrest a wanted Sudanese
minister by diverting a plane he was travelling on to Saudi Arabia. The
minister called off the trip.
But Moreno-Ocampo said the best solution would be for Sudanese authorities
to arrest Bashir. That would be a clear sign Sudan was changing its
behaviour, the Argentine said.
He said Bashir had kept his plan to visit Kenya secret.
"As soon as the judges informed the Security Council, he left Kenya. So he
is a fugitive president ...," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo said he stood by his promise to seek arrest warrants by the
end of the year for up to six Kenyans from both sides of the election
violence that killed 1,300 people in 2008.
"I promised to present two cases this year and I will do it," he said. Each
case would involve two or three people.
Moreno-Ocampo declined to confirm reports in the Kenyan media that several
key witnesses in the Kenyan cases had been flown out of the country to
ensure their safety. "I have a duty to protect the witnesses and we are
doing that," he said.
Moreno-Ocampo also said prosecutors would be ready, probably next week, to
disclose the identity of an intermediary used by the prosecutor's office to
help find witnesses in a war crimes case against Congolese militia leader
Thomas Lubanga.
Lubanga's trial was suspended last month after prosecutors refused to turn
over the intermediary's identity to the defence. (Additional reporting by
Aaron Gray-Block in Amsterdam) (Editing by Angus MacSwan)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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