Johannesburg // Sudan’s president Omar Al Bashir flew out of South Africa on Monday, defying a court order for him to stay in the country as judges weighed up whether he should be arrested for alleged war crimes and genocide.
The International Criminal Court said it was “disappointed” at South Africa’s failure to heed its calls to detain Mr Al Bashir on longstanding arrest warrants over the Darfur conflict.
As his plane took off on the final day of an African Union leaders’ summit in Johannesburg, the local high court was still hearing arguments over an urgent application to force the authorities to detain him.
“Our position has always been that South Africa’s obligation is clear and unequivocal. It had an obligation to arrest him,” the ICC’s chief deputy prosecutor, James Stewart, said.
South Africa is a signatory of the ICC, which has often been criticised for only targeting African leaders.
After Mr Al Bashir had departed, South African judge Dunstan Mlambo also issued a harsh rebuke of the government for ignoring Sunday’s court order requiring the authorities to keep him grounded.
“The conduct of the respondents – to the extent that they have failed to take steps to arrest and detain [Mr Al Bashir] – is inconsistent with the constitution of the Republic of South Africa,” Mr Mlambo said.
The government in Pretoria made no immediate comment on Mr Al Bashir’s exit or the court order, which was obtained by the Southern African Litigation Centre, a legal rights group.
In Khartoum, Mr Al Bashir waved his cane in the air as he stepped off the plane and then drove around outside the airport in an open-topped car amid a crowd of about 1,000 supporters.
Mr Al Bashir’s “participation [at the summit] confirms the president is one of Africa’s leaders,” Sudan’s foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour said on Monday.
Sudanese officials in Johannesburg earlier shrugged off the court case and said the South African government had given them assurances about Mr Al Bashir’s trip.
At the summit, the Sudanese president posed for a group photograph on Sunday along with South African president Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe, who is the chair of the 54-member group.
Mr Mugabe has previously urged all African leaders to pull out of the ICC.
The ICC indictments relate to the western Sudanese region of Darfur, which erupted into conflict in 2003 when non-Arab insurgents rose up against Mr Al Bashir’s Arab-dominated government, complaining of marginalisation.
Khartoum unleashed a bloody counter-insurgency using the armed forces and allied militia.
The United Nations says 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million forced to flee their homes.
Khartoum, however, disputes the figures, estimating the death toll at no more than 10,000.
The ICC had called on South Africa “to spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrants” against Mr Al Bashir, 71, who seized power in a coup in 1989.
“It’s an embarrassment for South Africa,” said Jakkie Cilliers, of the Institute for Security Studies think tank.
“South Africa has created a difficult situation for itself. My feeling is that by allowing him in they wanted to demonstrate to the world a common position of Africa on the ICC.”
“AU member states agree to respect the immunity of heads of state when they come for an international conference,” said Daniel Makiesse Mwanawanzambi, acting chair of the AU commission on international law.
Before Mr Al Bashir left South Africa, the UN chief Ban Ki-moon said: “The International Criminal Court’s warrant ... is a matter I take extremely seriously and the authority of the ICC must be respected.”
* Agence France-Presse
