The International Criminal Court on Wednesday opened the possibility of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir being charged with genocide in Darfur. The Sudanese leader has already been charged with 7 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, extermination, torture and rape. Bashir has repeatedly dismissed the allegations made by the ICC, the world's first permanent court for prosecuting war crimes, as part of a Western conspiracy. The Sudanese government has refused to co-operate with the court. The arrest warrant against Bashir was the first ever issued against a sitting head of state by the ICC. It prompted Bashir to expel international aid agencies last year. Adding a charge of genocide to the arrest warrant could further isolate Bashir, increase international pressure on him and provoke further unrest in Darfur, where 4.7 million people have been left dependent on aid by a 7-year conflict. The Darfur investigation was launched in June 2005 after the U.N. Security Council referred the situation to the ICC. The ICC spokeswoman, Laurence Blairon, said the indictment, drawn up by three judges, included five counts of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. The two counts of war crimes were for directing attacks on the civilian population and pillaging. Blairon said Bashir was criminally responsible as the head of state and commander of the Sudanese armed forces for the offenses during a five-year counter-insurgency campaign against three armed groups in Darfur. She said all states would be asked to execute the arrest warrant and if Sudan failed to cooperate the matter would be referred to the UN security council. On one hand, the United States, United Kingdom and France were in favor of the arrest warrant, and hope it may push Sudan's government towards reforms and ending the 7-year conflict. The states speaking Arabic and African states had pressed for a postponement of the charges to allow Bashir a final chance to end the Darfur conflict while not under duress. Under the ICC statute, the United Nations can still pass a resolution to defer the prosecution for 12 months, but this seems unlikely given the stance of leading western powers I believe that the Egyptian regime could face the same legal charges if violent hate crimes against Coptic Christians do not stop in Egypt. There were 160 violent attacks against the Coptic Christian religious minority in Egypt. Coptic Christian groups are in the process of collecting evidence to file legal actions in the international arena to punish public officials responsible for allowing these criminal attacks to occur and obligate the Mubark regime to pay damages to Copts, who were victimized by these hate crimes. BM
