New York, US - The International Criminal Court (ICC) said it will commence the trial of two Sudanese, Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus, on 5 May, a statement from the ICC, obtained by PANA here, said on Wednesday.
The statement said: ``The Pre-Trial Chamber I found substantial grounds to believe that Banda and Jerbo are criminally responsible as co-perpetrators for three war crimes -- violence to life and attempted violence to life, intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, materials, units and vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission and pillaging”.
``These crimes were allegedly committed during an attack led by Banda and Jerbo and other commanders and directed against the compound of the African Union Mission in Sudan at Haskanita on the evening of 29 September, 2007,’’ it stated.
It also said that, ``the Chamber found substantial grounds to believe that the attack was directed to personnel, installations, material, units and vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations which were entitled to the protection given to civilians and civilian objects”.
The statement recalled that on 7 March, 2011, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I unanimously decided to confirm the charges of war crimes brought by the ICC’s Prosecutor against Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus.
It, however, noted that “the ICC’s Trial Chamber IV, composed of Judge Joyce Aluoch, Presiding, Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi and Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, considered that the trial cannot start before necessary measures are put in place to ensure that, to the extent possible, any risk of interruptions to the trial proceedings is minimized”.
Such measures include witness protection and training for Zaghawa interpreters, to respect the rights of the accused to follow the trial in a language that they understand fully, as well as practical arrangements in coordination with the Host State (the Netherlands) for the accused to stay in the country during their trial.
“The Chamber recalled that the accused are not subject to arrest warrants and that the accused shall continue to be bound by the conditions set in the summonses to appear that have been issued for them by the ICC,” it added.
The situation in Darfur was referred to the ICC by UN Security Council resolution 1593 on 31 March 2005, under article 13(b) of the Rome Statute.
Pana 06/03/2013