ICC judges ship verdicts in trial of alleged militia chief from Sudan

International Criminal Court (ICC) judges are delivering their verdicts on Monday (October 6, 2025) within the trial of an alleged Arab militia chief in Sudan who prosecutors say was chargeable for “beastly violence” within the lethal Darfur battle greater than twenty years in the past.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman, often known as Ali Kushayb, pleaded harmless to all 31 expenses of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity when his trial opened in April 2022. He is accused of offences together with homicide, torture, rape, persecution and attacking civilians.

The verdict comes as allegations of atrocities and famine proceed to emerge from Sudan. In July, the ICC’s deputy prosecutor informed the United Nations that struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity are persevering with to happen in Sudan’s huge western Darfur area, the place civil struggle has raged for greater than two years.

Prosecutors say that Abd–Al-Rahman was a senior commander within the Janjaweed militias throughout the Darfur battle that erupted when rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African group launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated authorities within the capital, Khartoum.

Then-President Omar al-Bashir’s authorities responded with a scorched-earth marketing campaign of aerial bombings and raids by the Janjaweed, who typically attacked at daybreak, sweeping into villages on horseback or camelback.

The marketing campaign included mass killings and rapes, torture and persecution. Up to 300,000 individuals have been killed and a couple of.7 million have been pushed from their properties in Darfur through the years. Al-Bashir has been charged by the ICC with crimes together with genocide, however he has not been handed over to face justice in The Hague.

During the trial, judges heard from 56 witnesses who described horrific violence and the usage of rape as a weapon to terrorise and humiliate ladies. One witness stated that in one bloodbath, Abd-Al-Rahman allegedly informed fighters, “Repeat, repeat for these individuals. Maybe there are some that you’ve got missed.”

Defence attorneys referred to as 17 witnesses and argued that Abd-Al-Rahman was not a militia chief, however relatively “a nobody” who had no involvement within the Darfur battle.

If convicted, Abd-Al-Rahman will face a sentencing listening to at a later date. He may get a most sentence of life imprisonment.

As the verdicts are introduced in The Hague, battle rages in Sudan between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and Sudan’s navy. Tensions erupted in 2023 between the 2 earlier allies that have been meant to supervise a democratic transition after a 2019 rebellion. The preventing has killed not less than 40,000 individuals, in line with the World Health Organisation, and displaced as many as 12 million others. More than 24 million persons are going through acute meals insecurity in Sudan, in line with the World Food Program.

Two many years in the past, the RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militias, and Janjaweed teams nonetheless assist the RSF.