CAIRO — Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Maryam al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi said Aug. 11 that the Council of Ministers has decided to hand over the wanted persons in the Darfur file to the International Criminal Court (ICC), i.e., ousted President Omar al-Bashir and two of his aides — former Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed and former Gov. of North Kordofan Ahmed Haroun.

Ayman Salameh, a professor of public international law, explained Khartoum’s decision to extradite Bashir by saying that the ICC had exercised its jurisdiction in prosecuting Bashir, among others, based on United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1593 issued in 2005.

Salameh told Al-Monitor that the UNSC referred in advance, under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, the “Darfur” crisis to the ICC Prosecutor after the International Commission of Inquiry of the ICC, which was sent to Darfur in November 2004, issued a report referring the Darfur file to the ICC Prosecutor. The report, he noted, established that Bashir and his aides committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region.

Salameh added that presidents, prime ministers, ministers and other officials do not enjoy immunity from prosecution before the ICC, as the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding system, applies to all persons accused of committing crimes that pose a great threat to the international community.