By IRNA,
Cairo : The Arab League meeting in Cairo on Saturday criticized the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor for requesting the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Arab foreign ministers said that Sudan’s courts should judge alleged Darfur war crimes in a resolution following the crisis talks over the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s request on Monday for Bashir to be arrested.
The resolution said that “effective justice will be realized with the follow-up of the Arab League and the African Union.”
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who holds the current leadership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference asked the ICC to freeze its prosecution for a year, citing Article 16 of the Rome Statute which created the court.
“If the prosecution of al-Bashir continues, the situation in Darfur could worsen and plunge into indescribable chaos,” Wade warned.
The Arab heads of state have not always been silent on the systematic killing and torture and gang rape of civilians in Darfur Islamic scholars and representatives of human rights and aid groups met in Saly, Senegal, on 9 March to finalize a declaration to be submitted to the Organisation of Islamic Conference heads of state – including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
The declaration states: “It is absolutely necessary that the heads of state of the OIC take bold measures to respond to the humanitarian crises in Muslim communities around the world, and to collaborate with the wider international community.” Alioun Tine, president of the human rights coalition RADDHO, said that Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade had agreed to present the declaration to the heads of state.
This was the first time civil society groups had brought their concerns about Darfur to the OIC, mainly because of Wade’s willingness to take up the issue.
“We have the ear of President Abdoulaye Wade,” Tine said.