THE HAGUE, Netherlands
The trial at The Hague-based tribunal opens as some 45 people were killed last week in Darfur in fresh clashes between rival ethnic groups.
Ali Muhammad Ali
Abd-Al-Rahman, 72, an ally of deposed Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir, was a
senior commander of the Janjaweed militia -- a notorious armed group created by
the government.
Abd-Al-Rahman faces 31 counts
of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in 2003-04 in the arid
western Sudanese region.
The United Nations says
300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million people were displaced in the
2003-2004 Darfur conflict.
Back then, fighting broke out
when black African rebels, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up
arms against Bashir's Arab-dominated regime.
Khartoum responded by
unleashing the Janjaweed, a force drawn from among the region's nomadic tribes.
Rights groups said it was a
"systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing" targeting the Fur, Masalit
and Zaghawa ethnic groups.
In April 2007, the ICC issued
an arrest warrant for Abd-Al-Rahman, also known by the nom de guerre of Ali
Kushayb.
He fled to the Central African
Republic in February 2020 when the new Sudanese government announced its
intention to cooperate with the ICC investigation.
Four months later, he
surrendered voluntarily.
Prosecutors said
Abd-Al-Rahman, who carried the title of "colonel of colonels" in the
Janjaweed, played a central role in a series of attacks on at least four
villages in West Darfur.
He is charged with both
directing the attacks, as well as mobilising, recruiting, arming and supplying
to Janjaweed militia under his command.
During these attacks, at least
100 villagers were murdered, women and girls were raped and the members of the
predominantly Fur ethnic group subjected to forcible transfer and persecution.
After one attack in late
February and early March 2002 on a village, 100 Fur men including community
leaders, doctors and teachers were taken to a police station in the town of
Mukjar, where they were interrogated and tortured.
Fifty detainees were driven
out into the countryside, told to lie face down and were then executed,
prosecutors said.
In another incident in March
2004, between 100 to 200 Fur men were detained and taken to an open area at the
Deleig police station where they were tortured, prosecutors added.
"Abd-Al-Rahman stood or
walked on the backs of detainees, hit them... kicked them, and verbally abused
them," they said.
He then allegedly hit three
men with "a stick or an axe-like object."
"These males died as a
consequence of his conduct," prosecutors said.
Abd-Al-Rahman is the first
suspect to be tried for war crimes committed in Darfur -- "a rare
long-awaited chance for the victims and the communities the Janjaweed
terrorised to see an alleged leader face justice," Human Rights Watch said
in a statement.
His trial is also the
first-ever stemming from a UN Security Council referral.
Former president Omar
al-Bashir and three others are still being sought by the ICC -- which opened
its doors in 2002 to try those responsible for the world's worst crimes -- for
crimes in Darfur.
Following his ouster in 2019,
Bashir remains in Sudan despite calls for him and two other associates to be
handed over to the ICC for prosecution.
ICC chief prosecutor Karim
Khan said a military coup in Sudan in October marked a setback in the court's
work, with the northeast African country roiled by deepening unrest.
But "accelerated
cooperation with the International Criminal Court is the only viable path to
ensuring long-delayed justice for the survivors of crimes against humanity in
Darfur," Khan told the UN Security Council in January.
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