A suspected leader of the infamous Janjaweed Arab militia, used by the Sudanese government to rout out non-Arab rebels in 2003 and 2004, has pleaded not guilty at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, to more than 30 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Twenty years after the horrors in Darfur in western Sudan first shook the world, Tuesday’s was a landmark case because it was the first related to that notorious bloodshed to open at the ICC – and the first conflict to be referred directly to the ICC by the UN Security Council in March 2005.
Now in his 70s, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, gave himself up in 2020 after 13 years on the run. He is accused of directing thousands of mostly Arab Janjaweed fighters responsible for an orchestrated campaign of murder, persecution, rape and torture.
Some 300,000 people are believed to have been slaughtered in the most terrible circumstances during that campaign, which forced another two million people out of their homes. According to UN figures, around 1.6 million people are still internally displaced.
“I am innocent of all these charges,” Mr Abd al-Rahman responded when the full tariff of 31 charges was put to him at the start of the case in The Hague.
During earlier appearances he had claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity, while at the same time claiming that he was not educated enough to understand that any orders he might have carried out could result in war crimes.
However, opening the case, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan QC described the defendant as one of the key Janjaweed leaders the Khartoum government “worked closely with and relied upon”. He was a “willing and knowing participant” in the crimes alleged and took pride in his fearsome reputation.
Children
Mr Khan said that of the crimes with which he was charged, sexual gender-based crimes and crimes against children were “the bedrock underpinning the case”.
Rape was frequently and deliberately used against the mostly non-Arab civilian population. One protected witness, WPOO15, would say that several women attempted suicide as a result.
“Not even infants were spared in some attacks,” said the prosecutor. “The defendant was not remote from these crimes. He was an active participant.”
Sudanese former president Omar al-Bashir is also wanted by the ICC for genocide and war crimes during the conflict. He too denies the charges. He is currently in custody in Khartoum after being deposed in a coup in 2019.
The Abd-al-Rahman trial opens amid a surge in what humanitarian groups say is inter-communal violence in Darfur since the end of the hybrid UN-African Union mission there in December 2020.
