© International Criminal Court
Former Sudanese militia commander-in-chief Ali Kosheib during a confirmation hearing for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Darfur conflict at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in May 2021.
A trial for history. Almost twenty years after the abuses committed by the Sudanese army and its Jenjaweed militiamen in Darfurin western Sudan, the former militia leader Ali Kosheib, whose real name is Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, appears before the tribunal of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He is the first defendant to be tried for the crimes committed during this civil war. The culmination of more than fifteen years of requests from the ICC but also from human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch as well as Sudanese activists.
Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman was a collaborator of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He had been placed at the head of the Jenjawid militias, armed forces from nomadic Arab tribes in the region, recruited, armed and trained by the Sudanese government. These troops with a terrible reputation for brutality are sent to break the ethnic minorities who dared to take up arms against Khartoum at the end of 2003. The Jenjawids are accused of “ethnic cleansing” against the Masalit, Fur and Zaghawa communities. The UN estimates the human toll at 300,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced.
Rape, looting and deportation
The man who is nicknamed the “colonel of colonels” is said to have carried out operations in Darfur, and more specifically in the Wadi Salih area in August 2003. During this attack, his men allegedly killed more than 100 people, to whom s add the victims of rape, looting and forcibly deported. Ali Kosheib is on trial both for his participation in the recruitment and training of Jenjawid troops and for his role as commander during these attacks on villages.
Following the investigation conducted in Darfur by the International Criminal Court from 2005, a first arrest warrant was issued against him on April 27, 2007. For thirteen years, the fugitive, protected by the Sudanese regime, never is not worried. But the situation changed following the 2019 revolution, with the new regime announcing the following year that it agreed to cooperate with ICC investigators. Ali Kosheib then took refuge in the Central African Republic where he ended up, a few months later, by giving himself up voluntarily to the ICC. The former militia leader appears before the Pre-Trial Chamber from 15 June 2020which confirms all the charges a little more than a year later and therefore sends him to trial.
Long process
The “colonel of colonels” is on trial for 31 war crimes and crimes against humanity, for which he pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. He could be sentenced to a maximum of thirty years in prison. The trial involves 142 victims, speaking through legal representatives authorized to make oral statements, present evidence and question suspects. It is a long process that begins, since this type of trial generally takes several years before reaching a verdict. In addition, four other Sudanese officials are currently the subject of an arrest warrant from the ICC, including former President Omar al-Bashir, imprisoned in Khartoum since his dismissal by the coup. from October 2021.
Far from being stabilized, the situation in Darfur was aggravated by this putsch, which provoked an upsurge in violence in the region. In the week before the trial began, more than 45 people were killed in tribal clashes, according to local authorities.