Suspected Darfur militia leader maintains his innocence at ICC war crimes trial

THE HAGUE - A Sudanese man accused of ordering thousands of pro-government Janjaweed militia to carry out atrocities including murder and rape in Sudan's Darfur region told judges at the International Criminal Court on Friday that they had the wrong man.

In the first trial at the ICC looking at alleged atrocities in Darfur, prosecutors earlier this week said that Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman was the Janjaweed militia leader known by the nom de guerre Ali Kushayb who led pro-government fighters at the peak of the fighting in 2003-2004.

"I am not Ali Kushayb. I don't know this person," Abd-Al-Rahman told judges at the end of his trial.

The defendant said he voluntarily surrendered himself to the court in 2020 to clear his name, adding he had nothing to do with the accusations against him. Lawyers for Abd-Al-Rahman have called for his acquittal.

In his closing statement ICC prosecutor Karim Khan told judges that during the trial, prosecution witnesses had given "detailed accounts of mass murder, torture, rape, targeting of civilians, burning and pillaging of entire villages" and had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt.

The closing arguments mark the end of the ICC's first and only trial looking at crimes in Sudan since the case was referred to it by the United Nations' Security Council in 2005.

There are still outstanding arrest warrants against Sudanese officials, including one accusing former President Omar al-Bashir of genocide.