GENEVA - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk today welcomed the International Criminal Court's convictions of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al Rahman (Ali Kushayb) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sudan's western Darfur region in 2003-2004.
Today's verdicts by a Trial Chamber of the ICC - the first in a situation referred to the Court by the UN Security Council - come at a time when similar atrocity crimes are taking place once again in Darfur, and elsewhere in Sudan, amid the ongoing conflict between the Sudanese army and Rapid Support Forces.
"The convictions of Ali Kushayb represent an important acknowledgment of the enormous suffering endured by the victims of his heinous crimes, as well as a first measure of long overdue redress for them, and their loved ones." said Türk.
He paid tribute to the "victims who courageously shared their accounts of harrowing and life-altering loss and suffering, hoping against hope that one day accountability would reach their once seemingly untouchable tormentors."
"It is my earnest hope that today's verdicts will serve as a fresh reminder to the perpetrators of today's crimes that there can be no impunity for mass crimes against civilians; a reminder that they too will be brought to justice one day for grave violations of the law," said the High Commissioner.
He said the verdicts confirm the ICC's continuing importance as a court of last resort, a bulwark against impunity where there is no prospect for accountability at the national level.
Kushayb, a former senior leader of the Janjaweed militia in West Darfur State, was convicted by a three-judge bench in The Hague on charges including rape as a war crime and crime against humanity, and persecution on political, ethnic and gender grounds as a crime against humanity. The judgment is subject to appeal.
