OMAR AL BASHIR

• • In 2014, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda shelved the case due to a lack of cooperation in pushing for al-Bashir’s arrest 
  • Many saw the shelving as emblematic of the court’s lack of power over powerful individuals, especially sitting heads of state..
• • The first sitting president to be indicted by the ICC, Bashir is sought on allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region. 
  • He is accused of planning mass killings and deportations of members of several ethnic groups. 
  • Bashir avoided arrest by travelling abroad only with assurances from friendly foreign leaders that they would not turn him over. 
• • Since the court doesn’t have a police force, its supranational mission has fallen largely to its African member states to execute, meaning that the ICC needs those countries to carry out arrests even as they need.
• • In 2015, Al-Bashir attended an African Union summit in South Africa, where he could have been arrested
  • But, South Africa’s President Zuma visited Sudan to reinforce political, economic, and social relations between the two countries
  • As a result, Al Bashir was allowed to go.