Sudanese activists enter Embassy in Germany

On Thursday, a number of Sudanese refugees and activists from a refugee camp in the German Hannover stormed the Sudanese Embassy. They demanded the extradition of President Omar Al Bashir to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Reportedly, police lifted the intruders from inside the Embassy. They kept a close eye while the activists continued their demonstration in front of the building for three hours. (article continues below)

Nearly one year after International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the freezing of the Court’s investigations in Darfur, a number of victims have decided to do the same. In a motion filed by their legal representative on 19 October, eight Darfur victims notified the ICC of their intention to withdraw from the case against President Omar Al Bashir.

Al Bashir continues to defy an ICC arrest warrant as he travels around the continent. A case is pending before the ICC after South Africa failed to arrest him during a meeting of the African Union on its soil earlier this year.

ICC refers Darfur rebel leader's case to UNSC

The ICC on Thursday rapped Sudan for failing to arrest a Darfur rebel leader wanted on war crimes charges and said it would refer Khartoum to the UN Security Council.

In September 2014, the Hague-based ICC issued an arrest warrant against Abdallah Banda, saying it was "unlikely" he would voluntarily attend his war crimes trial, which has been postponed indefinitely. Banda faces three war crimes charges for his alleged role in an attack on African Union peacekeepers in September 2007 in northern Darfur. His trial for his role in the deadly attack on an AU military base in which 12 peacekeepers died was supposed to start on November 18, 2014.

But late Thursday, more than a year after the arrest warrant was issued, the judges at the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal acknowledged Banda remained at large. "By disregarding the requests to arrest and surrender Mr Banda … Sudan failed to comply with requests to cooperate with the court," the panel of three judges found. This was "contrary to the provisions" of the court's founding statute and the UN Security Council which the judges said "requires Sudan to arrest and surrender Mr Banda."

Backing a request from prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the judges ordered the case to be referred to the UN Security Council for further action.