South Africa | Sudan state news agency says al-Bashir en route back home

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is seen during the opening session of the AU summit in Johannesburg

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan left South Africa with his plane scheduled to land back home yesterday night, Sudan’s official news agency said, as the leader dodged a South African court’s effort to have him arrested on genocide and other charges.
The International Criminal Court’s charges against al-Bashir stem from reported atrocities in the conflict in Darfur, in which 300,000 people were killed and 2 million displaced in the government’s campaign, according to United Nations figures.
In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the ICC’s authority must be respected and its decision implemented.
An attorney for the South African government, William Mokhari, told a court yesterday in South Africa’s capital that a judge’s order that al-Bashir should stay in the country was being obeyed and that there was no risk of al-Bashir “disappearing” while he attended an African Union summit in nearby Johannesburg.
But soon after he uttered those words, South African journalist Erika Gibson tweeted photographs of what she said was Sudan’s presidential jet taking off from a South African military base. Sudanese state media then said al-Bashir had left South Africa and that a news conference would be held at the Khartoum airport upon his arrival.
On Sunday, a South African judge in the Pretoria court had ordered that al-Bashir remain in South Africa due to the ICC arrest order. Al-Bashir appeared in a group photo with other African heads of state on Sunday at the African Union summit in Johannesburg. Even before Sunday’s events, the African Union had asked the ICC to stop proceedings against sitting presidents and said it will not compel any member states to arrest a leader on behalf of the court.
In a government notice published June 5, South Africa’s minister of international affairs, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, signed an agreement granting diplomatic immunity to delegates participating in the African Union summit.
The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a rights group, had gone to court to press for al-Bashir’s arrest.
The African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling party, said the South African government granted immunity “for all (summit) participants as part of the international norms for countries hosting such gathering of the AU or even the United Nations.” Christopher Torchia, Pretoria, AP