A suspected head of a Darfur militia claims innocence during an ICC war crimes trial

On Friday, a Sudanese man who is accused of directing thousands of pro-government Janjaweed militia members to commit crimes like rape and murder in Sudan’s Darfur area told judges at the International Criminal Court that they were looking at the wrong man.

The Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, led pro-government fighters during the height of the violence in 2003-2004, according to prosecutors earlier this week in the ICC’s first trial examining alleged atrocities in Darfur.

It’s not me, Ali Kushayb. When his trial came to a close, Abd-Al-Rahman told the judges, “I don’t know this person.”

In order to clear his name, the defendant voluntarily turned himself in to the court in 2020, claiming he was unrelated to the charges against him. Attorneys for Abd-Al-Rahman have demanded that he be acquitted.

As ICC prosecutor Karim Khan concluded his closing remarks, he informed judges that prosecution witnesses had provided “detailed accounts of mass murder, torture, rape, targeting of civilians, burning and pillaging of entire villages” throughout the trial, proving the prosecution’s case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The concluding arguments conclude the ICC’s first and only trial examining crimes in Sudan since the UN Security Council referred the matter to it in 2005.

Sudanese politicians are still the subject of pending arrest warrants, one of which charges former President Omar al-Bashir of genocide.