ICC makes the first conviction over past atrocities in Sudan's Darfur

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, wearing a suit and tie and listening through a headset, showed no emotion as Presiding Judge Joanna Korner read out 27 guilty verdicts. He will be sentenced at a later date. He faces a maximum life sentence.

He was convicted of crimes for leading Janjaweed militia forces in Darfur that went on a campaign of killing and destruction in 2003-2004.

“He encouraged and gave instructions that resulted in the killings, the rapes and destruction committed by the Janjaweed,” Korner said, adding that the verdicts were unanimous.

Abd–Al-Rahman was transferred to ICC custody in 2020, after surrendering in Central African Republic. He pleaded innocent to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity when his trial opened in April 2022 and argued he was not the person known as Ali Kushayb. The judges rejected that defense, saying he even identified himself by his name and nickname in a video when he surrendered.

“Finally a victory for justice, and justice for the victims of Darfur,” Enaam al-Nour, a Darfur rights defender and journalist, said of the verdict.

The court's prosecution office also welcomed the conviction.

“It sends a resounding message to perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan, both past and present, that justice will prevail, and that they will be held accountable for inflicting unspeakable suffering on Darfuri civilians, men, women and children,” Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan said in a statement.

A court under intense pressure

The verdicts came as allegations of atrocities and famine continue to emerge from Sudan in a new conflict. In July, the ICC's deputy prosecutor told the United Nations that war crimes and crimes against humanity continue in Sudan’s vast western Darfur region where civil war has raged for more than two years.

The convictions were a success for the court that has been under intense pressure since issuing arrest warrants last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes they allegedly committed in Gaza. Netanyahu and Gallant reject the allegations. The Trump administration has slapped the ICC's top prosecutors and others at the court with sanctions.

Separately, the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has stepped aside from his position while an independent panel investigates sexual misconduct claims made against him.

Mass killings and other atrocities

The judges ruled that Abd-Al-Rahman was a senior commander in the Janjaweed militias during the Darfur conflict that erupted when rebels from the territory’s ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in the capital, Khartoum.

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

Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes in Darfur over the years. Al-Bashir has been charged by the ICC with crimes including genocide, but he has not been handed over to face justice in The Hague, despite being ousted from power and detained.

Al-Bashir is being held in a military-run detention facility in northern Sudan, his lawyer Mohamed al-Hassan al-Amin told The Associated Press on Monday. A former defense minister who is also wanted by the ICC has been released, he said.

During the trial, judges heard from 56 witnesses who described horrific violence and the use of rape as a weapon to terrorize and humiliate.

Abd-Al-Rahman was also found guilty of ordering the summary executions of scores of prisoners in March 2004 and of personally killing captive civilians, beating two men to death with an ax, Korner said.

Defense lawyers called 17 witnesses and argued that Abd-Al-Rahman was not a militia leader, but rather “a no one” who had no involvement in the Darfur conflict.

A new bloody conflict in Darfur

Conflict now rages in Sudan between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — born out of the Janjaweed militias — and Sudan's military. Tensions erupted in 2023 between the two previous allies that were meant to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 uprising.

A political activist and former minister in the post-Bashir government, Khalid Omar, hailed the verdict, saying it has brought justice to Darfur victims. He called for handing over other wanted suspects to the ICC, including al-Bashir.

“Justice for the victims will come, even if it takes some time,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

The fighting has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, and displaced as many as 12 million. More than 24 million face acute food insecurity, according to the World Food Program.

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, noted the “long-awaited landmark conviction for serious crimes in Darfur.”

“With the current conflict in Sudan producing new generations of victims and compounding the suffering of those targeted in the past, the verdict should spur action by governments to advance justice by all possible means,” Evenson said.

Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.