A South African court on Sunday issued a temporary ban on Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir leaving the country after the International
Criminal Court called for him to be arrested at a summit in Johannesburg.
Bashir, who is wanted over alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide in the Darfur conflict, mostly travels to countries that have not
joined the ICC, but South Africa is a signatory of the court’s statutes.
The Pretoria High Court said in a statement it was “compelling respondents
to prevent President Omar Al-Bashir from the leaving the country until an
order is made in this court”.
The hearing is set to take place later Sunday, the opening day of the
African Union summit.
The ruling came after the Southern African Litigation Centre, a legal
rights group, launched an urgent court application to force the
authorities to arrest Bashir.
Bashir joined a group photograph of leaders at the summit despite the
calls for his arrest.
Wearing a blue suit, he stood in the front row for the photograph along
with South African host President Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe’s President
Robert Mugabe, who is the chair of the 54-member group.
Mugabe has previously urged African leaders to pull out of the ICC, which
critics accuse of targeting Africa.
The ICC said in a statement from its headquarters in The Hague that it
“calls on South Africa… to spare no effort in ensuring the execution of
the arrest warrants” against Bashir.
It said South Africa diplomats had been pressed last month to arrest
Bashir if he attended the summit, but that they replied they faced
“competing obligations” over the issue.
Bashir, 71, seized power in Sudan in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989.
“South Africa has an obligation to arrest him,” Johannesburg-based rights
lawyer Gabriel Shumba told AFP.
“Failure to do so puts them in the same bracket as other African regimes
who have no respect for human rights. It’s actually a test for South
Africa.”
Darfur erupted into conflict in 2003 when insurgents mounted a campaign
against Bashir’s government, complaining their region was politically and
economically marginalised.
– ‘Grave crimes’ –
More than 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and fighting has
forced some 2.5 million people to flee their homes, the United Nations
says.
Khartoum, however, disputes the figures, estimating the death toll at no
more than 10,000.
“Allowing President al-Bashir into South Africa without arresting him
would be a major stain on South Africa’s reputation for promoting justice
for grave crimes,” said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.
“South Africa’s legal obligations as an ICC member mean cooperating in
al-Bashir’s arrest, not in his travel plans.”
The two days of discussions among the member states had been set to focus
on the political unrest in Burundi and the migration crisis across the
continent.