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Militia Leader Denies Sudan's Darfur Charges at Hague Court

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, is accused of overseeing thousands of pro-government Janjaweed fighters responsible for persecution, murder, rape and torture during the 2003-2004 height of the violence in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Darfur.

Abd-Al-Rahman voluntarily surrendered to  the Hague-based International Criminal Court in June 2020 after 13 years on the run.

"I am innocent of all of these charges," septuagenarian Abd-Al-Rahman, told judges after the charges were read out at the start of his case.

Decades after the worst of the fighting, the UN  estimates that some 1.6 million people are still internally displaced in Darfur. Darfur's conflict first erupted when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, which responded with a counter-insurgency.

Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, to crush the revolt, unleashing a wave of violence that Washington and activists say amounted to genocide.

Abd-Al-Rahman has been accused of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and could face life imprisonment if convicted.

InFocus

Albert González Farran / UNAMID

Zalingei, a town in Central Darfur, Sudan (file image).

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