ICC convicts Janjaweed commander in 'landmark' Sudan case

More than 20 years on from the atrocities committed Sudan’s Darfur region, a Janjaweed militia leader was convicted on Monday by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 27 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. 

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known commonly as Ali Kushayb, will have his sentence determined after a new round of hearings. His crimes included rape, murder and persecution. 

The conviction in the first and only trial looking at crimes in Sudan since the case was referred to the court by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. 

“Of course, 20 years too late is never satisfying, but I think considering we haven’t seen any kind of justice ever for any crime committed by any Sudanese government or government aligned person, this is a landmark case,” Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst and founder of the Confluence Advisory think tank, told Middle East Eye.

A vast region in western Sudan, Darfur has been wracked by conflict for much of the 21st century. In 2003, local populations there, mostly non-Arab, took up arms against the Sudanese government of Omar al-Bashir, an autocrat who ruled from 1989 to 2019.

Bashir’s government was accused by the Darfuris of marginalising and mistreating them. To crush this rebellion, which was led by the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement, the government deployed the mostly Arab Janjaweed militias.

The fighters went on to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a wave of violence that the US and human rights groups determined to be a genocide.

Ali Kushayb, the “colonel of colonels” who came from an Arab tribe and operated in West Darfur, commanded thousands of Janjaweed militia as part of the Popular Defence Forces (PDF), an Islamist paramilitary aligned with Bashir’s National Congress Party. 

He was alleged to have implemented the government’s counter-insurgency strategy in Darfur and was seen as the mediator between Janjaweed leaders in Wadi Salih, West Darfur, and Bashir’s administration in the capital Khartoum.

In 2020, Kushayb surrendered himself voluntarily to the ICC while in the Central African Republic. His arrest warrant was first issued in 2007. From his arrival at the ICC, Kushayb denied that he was the person who the court believed him to be.

'Don’t leave anyone behind'

Joanna Korner, the presiding judge at the ICC, said Ali Kushayb had been found guilty of all crimes he had been charged with and dismissed his defence that he was the victim of mistaken identity. 

“He encouraged and gave instructions that resulted in the killings, the rapes and destruction committed by the Janjaweed,” she said. 

'He encouraged and gave instructions that resulted in the killings, the rapes and destruction committed by the Janjaweed'

- Joanna Korner, judge

Korner described Kushayb as someone who was clearly a “person of some renown, highly respected” before the war in Darfur began. But she said that the commander had given orders to “wipe out and sweep away” non-Arab tribes and told soldiers: “Don’t leave anyone behind. Bring no-one alive.”

In her judgement, Korner referred to a top-level secret Sudanese government plan to “restore security” and “impose control” on the rebellious non-Arab populations of Darfur, which was to be carried out by the Janjaweed with the help of air and other support from the Sudanese army.

Korner said that the secret plan also called for the Janjaweed to “assassinate sympathisers from amongst community leaders and local administration officials”. 

The court found that it was this plan “which provided the blueprint for the commission of the crimes that then took place”. The Janjaweed, acting on government instructions, carried out armed operations against villages made up of Fur and other non-Arab Sudanese people. 

Korner described “Fur men of all ages” being detained, tortured and executed outside their towns by members of the Janjaweed together with government of Sudan forces.

Response from Darfur

Victims of the Darfur conflict said the milestone judgment had restored some faith in the ICC and its slow procedures, according to Reuters.

“As victims, the ruling is a victory for us and for justice, because the crimes he committed had huge impacts for the last 22 years. We were displaced, made refugees in camps,” said Jamal Abdallah, 32, who was displaced from his home in West Darfur as a child by the Janjaweed in 2003.

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“This is the first time a member of the state has been tried and found guilty within any court,” Khair said.

“But I think for people living in Darfur today whose lives are immiserated by this current war, it is cold comfort to have this justice taking place thousands of miles away in a foreign country.”

The Janjaweed militias that terrorised Darfur were incorporated into the Sudanese state in 2013 by Bashir and renamed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The head of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, was himself a former Janjaweed commander.

In April 2023, the RSF broke from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Sudan’s war began, plunging the country into one of the deepest humanitarian crises anywhere in the world.

In Darfur, the successors of the Janjaweed have once again been accused by the US and human rights groups of genocide against non-Arab groups.

Outstanding arrest warrants

There remain outstanding ICC arrest warrants against Sudanese officials, including one accusing Bashir of genocide. The former autocrat is believed to be in military custody in northern Sudan alongside former defence minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein.

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Former Sudanese interior minister, Ahmed Haroun, who is wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, escaped prison after the outbreak of the war in 2023, telling Reuters in northern Sudan in April that the ICC was a colonialist institution. 

In a separate case, an urgent appeal was launched this week on behalf of the Sudanese human rights lawyer and activist Abu Bakr Mansour, who was sentenced to death by a court in Sinnar state on Sunday.

Responding to the ICC’s verdict, Khair described Ali Kushayb as “not as big a protagonist in the Darfur genocide as Bashir or Haroun”. 

“It is a landmark case,” she said, “but considering the political logic that is playing out in Sudan and the region right now, I don’t think it’s enough to make a dent in the political calculations of anyone involved in the war.”