Sudan is rejecting allegations made on Tuesday by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against two Sudanese accused of war crimes in Darfur.
ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said there was evidence that Sudan’s minister of state for Humanitarian Affairs, Ahmad Muhamad Haroun, recruited people for the Janjaweed, an armed group allegedly backed by Khartoum.
The Janjaweed has been blamed for atrocities in the western province of Darfur. Khartoum denies it backs the Janjaweed, but there is increasing evidence linking them.
Sudanese Justice Minister Muhammad ‘Ali Al-Mar’di said Khartoum did not accept the indictment handed down by the ICC and would not hand over the suspects, according to the Sudan Tribune.
At a briefing in The Hague, Moreno-Ocampo said Haroun and a Janjaweed leader known as ‘Ali Kusheib were suspected of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Haroun told Al-Jazeera that the ICC ruling was politically motivated and that the charges were baseless.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than two million displaced since the conflict between local rebels and the Janjaweed erupted in 2003.
Khartoum says Kusheib is under arrest in Sudan and is being investigated for many deaths. But Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan has not filed charges against him.
The ICC, the world’s first permanent war crime court, is supposed to prosecute when national courts are unwilling or unable to act.