Darfur community leader: ‘Extradite Al Bashir too’

Hussein Abusharati, a prominent community leader of the camps for displaced people in  Darfur, described the transfer of Ali Kushayb to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague as “a great day for all the victims, and a first step in achieving the long-awaited justice in Darfur”.

Abusharati told Radio Dabanga that the next step must be that the other four indicted suspects – former President Omar Al Bashir, former Minister of Interior Affairs and Defence Abdelrahim Hussein, former governor of North Kordofan Ahmed Haroun, and former leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement Abdallah Banda – will be extradited to The Hague to stand trial at the ICC.

He called upon the transitional Sudanese government to hand them over to the ICC.

Fadi El Abdallah, spokesperson for the ICC, confirmed to Radio Dabanga that Kushayb is now in custody of the ICC, but did not disclose his exact location.

The procedures against Kushayb will follow the regular legal procedures, he added.

El Abdallah said that Kushayb's detention 13 years after his arrest warrant was issued, shows that legal procedures may take time, but that suspects remain suspects until they are arrested or die.

He added that Sudan is obliged by the UN Security Council and the Rome Statute to extradite Al Bashir, Hussein, and Haroun, who are currently being detained in Khartoum, to The Hague.

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