The African Union said Saturday that plans by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Sudanese government officials for alleged warcrimes could jeopardize peace efforts in Darfur. In Cairo, the Arab League said on Saturday it will hold crisis talks on Sudan after reports the ICC may seek Sudanese President Omar Al-Beshir's arrest. The Cairo-based League received “an official from the Sudanese government and examined the latest developments in the situation between Sudan and the ICC,” Hisham Yussef, secretary general Amr Moussa's chief of staff, told reporters. Earlier, the Sudanese ambassador to Egypt, Abdel Moneim Mabruk, told Egypt's official MENA news agency that his country had made a request to Moussa to hold crisis talks. “The meeting will take place,” Yussef said, adding that no date had yet been set. Darfur's main rebel groups, meanwhile, said any arrest warrant for Al-Beshir would be a triumph for justice. “This is a new world age – it will send a message that anyone who commits crimes and genocide will be judged,” Abdel Wahed Mohamed El-Nur, founder of the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), said by telephone from the United States, where he has lived for several years. In a statement released after a meeting in the Ethiopian capital, the African Union's Peace and Security Council “expressed its strong conviction that the search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardize efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace.” The statement follows reports that prosecutors of the international court may seek the arrest of Al-Beshir for warcrimes committed by his forces in the western province of Darfur. The Council said it had been briefed on the ICC's plans on Friday by the court's deputy prosecutor, and “reiterated the AU's concern with the misuse of indictments against African leaders.” It said the UN Security Council itself, in a March 2005 resolution, had “emphasized the need to promote healing and reconciliation” in the region. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced on Thursday that he would unveil a new case on Darfur and name suspects next Monday. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Friday confirmed newspaper reports that ICC prosecutors would seek an arrest warrant for Al-Beshir. It would mark the first-ever bid by the ICC, based in The Hague, to charge a sitting head of state.
