ICC jails Sudanese militia leader for Darfur atrocities
International Criminal Court judges have sentenced a leader of the feared Sudanese Janjaweed militia to 20 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the devastating conflict in Darfur more than two decades ago.
At a hearing last month, prosecutors sought a life sentence for Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, who was convicted of 27 war crimes and crimes against humanity, including ordering mass executions in October and beating two prisoners to death with an ax in 2003-04.
“He committed these crimes knowingly, voluntarily and with the zeal and zeal that the evidence shows,” prosecutor Julian Nicholls told judges at his sentencing hearing in November.
Abd-Al-Rahman, 76, stood and listened but showed no reaction as President Joanna Korner handed down the sentence Tuesday.
The court imposed sentences ranging from eight to 20 years for each of the crimes for which he was convicted, before imposing the general sentence of 20 years.
He said Abd-Al-Rahman “not only gave orders that directly led to the crimes, but also committed some of them himself, using the ax he carried to beat prisoners” in attacks largely targeting members of the Fur tribe who were thought to support an insurgency against Sudanese authorities.
Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, became the first person convicted by the ICC for atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region; where trial judges ruled that the Janjaweed crimes were part of the government’s plan to suppress the rebellion there.
The ICC maximum sentence is 30 years’ imprisonment, but judges have the discretion to commute this sentence to life imprisonment in extremely serious cases.
The periods Abd-Al-Rahman spent in detention before and during the trial will be deducted from the sentence.
Abd-Al-Rahman’s crimes were committed more than two decades ago, but violence continues to plague Darfur as Sudan is torn apart by civil war.
ICC prosecutors are trying to collect and preserve evidence from a deadly attack in a besieged city in the region in November.
The ICC statement stated that the latest atrocities alleged in famine-hit al-Fasher “are part of a broader pattern of violence affecting the entire Darfur region” and “may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity”, and that the evidence could be used in future investigations.
Korner said ICC sentences were imposed as a deterrent to prevent other crimes in the future.
“Given the current situation in Sudan, deterrence is particularly appropriate in this situation,” he said.
