A Ugandan court has ruled that the country failed its international obligations by not arresting Sudan’s ex-President Omar al-Bashir when he visited the country in 2016 and 2017.
Bashir has an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for genocide and crimes against humanity. Signatories to the ICC, including Uganda, are obliged to arrest him if he enters their territory.
But Bashir visited Uganda on two occasions, in 2016 and 2017 without being detained.
Nicholas Opiyo, the lawyer who filed the case, has said that he is happy with the ruling. “Uganda will not and cannot be a haven for fugitives or people against whom arrest warrants have been issued. That is the bottom line.
“Ultimately the state of Uganda has an obligation under domestic and international law to comply with arrest warrants issued by the ICC… regardless of whether he is a head of state,” he said.
In a similar case in 2016, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the country’s failure to arrest Bashir was inconsistent with its obligations and unlawful.
Bashir, who governed Sudan for three decades, was ousted in April, following months of protests. This month, he was convicted of corruption and sentenced to two years in a social reform facility.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International yesterday urged Sudan’s new transitional government to deliver on popular demands for sweeping change as the country marked the first anniversary of mass protests that led to the ouster of Omar al-Bashir.
A year ago, the first rally was held in Sudan to protest the soaring cost of bread, marking the beginning of a pro-democracy movement that convulsed the large African country.
That led, in April, to the toppling by the country’s military of al-Bashir, and ultimately to the creation of a joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has committed to rebuilding the country and promises elections in three years.
The anniversary drew teeming crowds to the streets in several cities and towns across the country. In the morning, a train packed with exuberant demonstrators, clapping and chanting, arrived in the capital, Khartoum, from the northern city of Atbara, the birthplace of the uprising.
“The transitional authorities must honor the commitments they made to restore the rule of law and protect human rights,” Seif Magango, Amnesty’s deputy director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes said in a statement. “The Sudanese people deserve nothing less.”
The global rights group said Sudan’s new government has shown positive signs of progress during its fragile transition to democracy, citing the repeal of a decades-old Islamist moral policing law and dissolution of the former ruling party, moves that have helped the Sovereign Council distance itself from al-Bashir’s disgraced rule.