From the Scotsman:
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court plans to issue arrest warrants for suspects in connection with atrocities in Darfur by February – nearly two years after the United Nations Security Council asked him to investigate.
In a report ahead of his address today to the council, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said his office was preparing submissions for arrest warrants to judges at the ICC, the world’s first permanent criminal court, based in The Hague, in the Netherlands.
Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s team has carried out more than 70 missions to 17 countries and conducted over 100 interviews, many of which were with victims of crimes in Darfur.
Senior government figures in Sudan deemed to be part of the command structure for ethnic cleansing in the region may be issued with warrants based on allegations that government warplanes support operations by the Janjaweed militia, whose name means “evil spirits on horseback”….
Sudan’s close ally, China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has made it clear that it will use its veto to protect Sudan against outside intervention. China is developing Sudan’s new oil fields and has built a 950-mile pipeline from the interior to the Red Sea port of Port Sudan.
Beijing also arms the Sudanese armed forces and has built three weapons factories in Khartoum. Some 70 per cent of all Sudan’s exports go to China. However, ICC arrest warrants might persuade China to exert pressure on Khartoum to compromise on Darfur.
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