The Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has renewed calls for arrest of Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir over alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.
Bensouda made the call at a UN Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday.
The Hague-based court slammed South Africa and Jordan for failing to arrest Al Bashir when he travelled to the two countries.
Bensouda further said a pre-trial chamber of the Court plans to decide whether South Africa acted in non-compliance with the Statute when it failed to arrest Al Bashir in June 2015.
On 29 March, the Sudanese leader travelled to Jordan, but Jordan declined to arrest him
Bensouda pointed out that to date, the Court had made 13 decisions on non-compliance and referred them to the Security Council.
“Yet not one has been acted upon by this Council,” she said. “By failing to act in response to such Court decisions, this Council is, in essence, relinquishing and undermining its clear role on such matters,” she added.
She recalled that the international tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia were reminders that persistence and determination could result in the arrest and surrender of suspects many years after the issuance of arrest warrants.
The ICC was established by the treaty known as the Rome Statute adopted at an international conference in Rome on July 17, 1998 and it entered into force on July 1, 2002.