U.N. Votes to Send Sudan War Crime Suspects to World Court

The Security Council voted Thursday night to send any war crimes suspects from the Darfur region of Sudan to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, after the United States obtained amendments to exempt Americans from the tribunal's jurisdiction. The vote of the 15-member Council was 11 in favor, with four abstentions- Algeria, Brazil, China and the United States. The withdrawal of American opposition to sending the cases to the court represented a significant diplomatic change of course for the Bush administration, which vehemently opposes the court and has been insisting for two months that it would block any Security Council move legitimizing it. Anne W. Patterson, the deputy United States ambassador to the United Nations, said, "We have not dropped and indeed continue to maintain our longstanding and firm objections and concerns regarding the I.C.C." It was the third Sudan resolution in the Council in a week after two months of delay that had raised a clamor of criticism against the panel over its inaction. On March 24, the Council unanimously passed a measure establishing a 10, 715-member force to shore up a peace agreement in the south of the country and lend assistance to the 2,000 African Union troops in Darfur. On Tuesday, the panel voted 12 to 0 with three abstentions to impose a travel ban and asset freeze on individuals who commit atrocities or break cease-fire agreements. The conflict in Darfur is estimated to have displaced 2.4 million people and cost the lives of up to 300,000 black African villagers. [more]

Criminal Court given Darfur evidence
The UN yesterday gave prosecutors at the international criminal court the evidence it had gathered of the atrocities in Darfur, as a preliminary step to possible war crimes prosecutions. Documents gathered last year by a UN commission were driven overnight from Geneva to the court in The Hague, in the Netherlands. At UN headquarters in New York yesterday, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, handed the chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, a sealed envelope holding a list of 51 people the commission recommends should stand trial. UN officials have said the list includes Sudan government officials, rebels, and Janjaweed militia. Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that he would analyse the material, assess the alleged crimes and the admissibility of the cases. He urged those with information on Darfur to provide it to his office. "We all have a common task - to protect life, ending the culture of impunity," he said. His deputy at The Hague said prosecutors would decide if the case fell within the court's jurisdiction and merited formal investigation. [more]