JURIST - Paper Chase: ICC chief prosecutor urges states to prepare for ruling on Bashir arrest

[JURIST] Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) [official website] Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official profile] Wednesday formally called upon states [press release] to prepare for the court's ruling on the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir [BBC profile]. Briefing the UN Security Council [official website] on the situation in Darfur, Ocampo urged members to ensure there is no political and financial support for those subject to arrest for crimes or for those protecting them. He said:

An indicted person travelling on the territory of an UN member State should be arrested and surrendered to the Court. There is no immunity on account of rank or official position for those identified by the judges of the International Criminal Court as responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Ocampo insisted that full cooperation by all states was essential for the success of all the court's activities in the matter.

In June, the Security Council issued a short presidential statement urging Sudan to work with the ICC [JURIST report] to "put an end to impunity for the crimes committed in Darfur." Sudan is not a party to the ICC, but must cooperate to fulfill its obligations under Council Resolution 1593 [text], which established jurisdiction over the Darfur situation. Hundreds of thousands of people have allegedly been killed in Darfur by Sudanese military and janjaweed [Slate backgrounder] militia forces. In July, Ocampo applied for an arrest warrant [JURIST report] for Bashir on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes for atrocities committed in the country’s Darfur region.

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