Headlines
Conflicting reports on Sudanese president's whereabouts
Johannesburg, June 15
As a Pretoria judge on
Monday prepared to rule on whether South African authorities must arrest
visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for "crimes against
humanity", there were conflicting reports about his whereabouts.
The
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said that one of its
reporters saw al-Bashir outside a hotel near the Sandton International
Convention Centre where the 25th session of the African Union (AU)
Summit has been taking place since Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.
But,
according to a BBC report, al-Bashir has left South Africa and was
expected to land in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum later in the day.
Justice
Hans Fabricious of the Pretoria High Court on Sunday issued an order
that bars al-Bashir from leaving South Africa. Fabricious issued an
interim order preventing the Sudanese president from leaving South
Africa, pending a decision of the court, to be made after an urgent
application that he be arrested is made.
Different media sources,
quoting Sudan's information minister in Khartoum, reported on Monday
that al-Bashir had fled South Africa after attending the first day of
the 25th session of the African Union (AU) summit held in Sandton on
Sunday.
Al-Bashir participated in the official opening of the
summit and was still in the summit venue after 8.00 p.m. when he
attended a meeting of the AU and the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development concerning the crisis in South Sudan.
Sudan's Foreign
Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, who is also at the summit, told journalists
that al-Bashir would remain in South Africa until the summit ends on
Monday.
Al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal
Court (ICC) for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
against some of the tribes of Sudan's western region of Darfur.
Two
warrants of arrest were issued against him in 2009 and 2010. As a
member of the ICC, South Africa is obliged to arrest him and surrender
him to the ICC.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the ICC's
warrant for the arrest of al-Bashir must be implemented by countries who
have signed up to the court's statutes.
Before the summit, the
ICC issued a press statement urging the South African government "to
spare no effort in ensuring the execution of the arrest warrant".