ICC Sentences Sudan Militia To @0 Years For Atrocities In Dafur

ICC Sentences Sudan Militia Leader to 20 Years for Atrocities in Darfur Darfur / Sudan The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday in a landmark case sentenced a Janjaweed militia leader to 20 years in jail for atrocities committed over two decades ago in Sudan’s Darfur region, Anadolu Agency reported. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, known as Ali Kushayb, was found guilty in October on 27 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur, Sudan, between August 2003 and April 2004. The counts include torture, rape, and murder. Kushayb, 76, had originally argued that the charges were a case of mistaken identity, but the court rejected his defense, the BBC added. “(Abd al-Rahman) not only gave the orders which led directly to the crimes but … also personally perpetrated some of them,” presiding Judge Joanna Korner told the court. Kushayb was a key leader of the Janjaweed, a government-backed militia that terrorized the Darfur region and killed hundreds of thousands of people two decades ago. The court noted that it would have imposed a tougher sentence if not for certain mitigating factors, such as his age and his voluntary surrender. The time Kushayb spent in detention since surrendering in June 2020 will be deducted from his term. However, the court emphasized that it only gave these elements “limited weight” in selecting the appropriate sentence. The sentence represents a historic moment for the ICC, as he is the first person to be tried for crimes perpetrated in Sudan. There are still outstanding warrants for other Sudanese officials. The 2003-2020 conflict in Darfur erupted after the then-government of Sudan mobilized the mostly Arab Janjaweed militias to stop an armed revolt by rebels from Black African ethnic groups, who accused the state of marginalizing them. Human rights groups have alleged that the violence that followed amounted to genocide and ethnic cleansing against the non-Arabic population in the region. Darfur is currently a battleground for the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – the latter originating from the Janjaweed. According to the United Nations, the conflict has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.