CAIRO: Sudan has agreed to set up special courts to try alleged human rights abuses in Darfur which will be monitored by international bodies including the UN, an Arab League official said Wednesday.
They agreed to establish special courts, Hisham Yussef, chief of staff for Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, told AFP.
They also agreed that the Arab League, the UN and the African Union would follow (the trials) but also ensure that laws in Sudan cover all the aspects required under international law.
The move follows a request by International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to have Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir charged with war crimes including genocide in the war-ravaged region of Darfur.
If ICC judges grant an arrest warrant, which could take several months, it would be the first issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
However, if Sudan holds viable trials of those accused of crimes in Darfur, the ICC automatically drops its charges.
They will try whoever is accused of violating human rights laws, whatever the crimes are, Yussef said, adding that Beshir himself would not necessarily be excluded from the courts jurisdiction despite being head of state.
We did not mention any names, but it was understood and indicated that this would apply to everyone no matter what their official capacity is. They (Sudan government) believes no one is above the law.
Sudan has in the past promised to try alleged Darfur war crimes, but credible trials have failed to emerge.
Sudan s two other ICC indictees, current cabinet minister Ahmed Harun and Arab militia leader Ali Kosheib, had been due to be tried in Sudanese courts on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
But Kosheib s trial was indefinitely suspended in March 2007 and Harun was briefly detained and released last October for lack of evidence.
Moussa held a series of top-level talks in Khartoum on Sunday and Monday about an Arab action plan, the details of which he has kept secret, that was widely expected to try to stall possible war crimes charges against Beshir.
Yussef could not give any timeframe for when the courts would be set up, but stressed that there is great sense of urgency, so this is not something to be delayed.
This is recognized by everybody, by the government, by parties in Sudan, by the Arab League and the United Nations.
The UN says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 people have been killed.
It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth. -AFP
