Al Bashir stole billions, ICC prosecutor says

The Hague: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Saturday he has evidence that Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir stole billions of dollars from his impoverished country.

"From different sources, we have information about possible accounts that could belong to President [Al] Bashir in foreign banks," Luis Moreno Ocampo said in a statement to The Associated Press.

But he said that his prosecution is focused on Al Bashir's alleged orchestration of genocide in Darfur and not suspected embezzlement.

"The most urgent reason to arrest Mr Bashir is not because he could have billions in his secret accounts but because he is still controlling an ongoing genocide in Darfur," Moreno Ocampo said.

Arrest warrants

He gave no further details of the information his office has about the alleged foreign accounts, but said they were not in Britain.

The court issued arrest warrants for Al Bashir in July on three charges of genocide for allegedly masterminding atrocities in his country's Darfur region. He also was charged last year with crimes against humanity in the war-torn region.

Al Bashir, who was re-elected to a new five-year term earlier this year, refuses to recognise the court's authority and has insisted he will not turn himself in to stand trial.

Sudan's Information Ministry rejected the embezzlement claim and called the court "a wretched political action".

"The allegation of the ICC prosecutor is meant to convince the US administration to support him in propagating this lie which he thought will make the Sudanese people turn against him [Al Bashir]," the ministry said in a statement.

The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been forced from their homes in Darfur since ethnic African rebels rose up in 2003, accusing Sudan's Arab-dominated central government of neglect and discrimination.

The embezzlement accusations were first reported Saturday by British newspaper The Guardian, based on a diplomatic cable provided by the Wikileaks website.

Referendum: Islamic code

Sudan's president yesterday said the country would adopt an entirely Islamic constitution if the south split away after a referendum, in a speech in which he also defended police who were filmed flogging a woman.

"If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity," President Omar Hassan Al Bashir told supporters. "Sharia and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language," he said.

Southerners are now three weeks away from the start of a vote on whether to declare independence or stay a part of Sudan.

— Reuters