African Union: ICC Should Not Prosecute Sitting Heads Of State

[HuffingtonPost]

By Aaron Maasho and Edmund Blair                

ADDIS ABABA, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Africa has agreed that  sitting heads of state should not be tried by the International  Criminal Court where Kenya's leaders are in the dock, ministers  said before African leaders opened a summit on Saturday.                

Foreign ministers of the 54-member African Union also called  for deferring the cases of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and  his deputy, William Ruto, after a meeting to discuss Africa's  relations with the court based in The Hague.                

"It should be underscored that our goal is not and should  not be a crusade against the ICC, but a solemn call for the  organisation to take Africa's concerns seriously," Ethiopian  Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said in an opening address.                

Leaders meeting in Addis Ababa at the AU headquarters are  expected to endorse the recommendations hammered out by  ministers in Friday's meeting that extended past midnight.                

Following that session, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros  Adhanom said trying Kenya's president and his deputy infringed  on that nation's sovereignty. The two men deny charges that they  orchestrated a killing spree after a disputed 2007 election.                

Frustration with the ICC has been growing in Africa because  the court has convicted only one man, an African warlord, and  all others it has charged are also Africans.                

The ministers did not call for a mass walk-out from the  court's jurisdiction, however. Officials previously said that  idea would be on the agenda but it did not draw broad support  among the continent's 34 signatories to the court's Rome  Statute.                

Rights groups had urged African nations not to turn their  backs on the court, which they say is vital to ending what they  see as a culture of impunity in African politics.                

Hailemariam told gathered leaders that the court and the  U.N. Security Council had showed a "double standard" in the way  it treated Africa and said earlier African requests for  deferring cases had been ignored.                

"It is indeed very unfortunate that the court has continued  to operate in complete disregard of the concerns that we have  expressed," he said.                

Ethiopia's foreign minister said a group led by the AU  chair, now Ethiopia, with members from Africa's five regions  would press the U.N. Security Council to defer proceedings  against Kenya's leadership and the Sudanese president.                                

"DEMANDING RESPECT"                

While the Kenyan politicians have cooperated with the court,  Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir is now subject to an arrest  warrant after dismissing charges of war crimes and genocide.                

"We underscored that sitting heads of state and governments  should not be prosecuted while in office," Ethiopia's Tedros  said, adding a one-year delay was being requested under article  16 of the Rome Statute.                

Ministers called for using video links in the Kenyan trials  to ensure leaders could carry on their official duties.                

The court has yet to rule on whether Kenyatta and Ruto can  be excused from large parts of their trials or whether they can  participate by a video link. Proceedings, though not trials,  against the two were underway before their March vote win.                

"Demanding respect is the least Africa can do, but I also  don't like to see this mistaken for - as we have seen with some  of the detractors of this exercise - that Africans are  supporting impunity. We don't," Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise  Mushikiwabo told Reuters.                

Those comments were echoed by Ethiopia's premier and others.                

After wrangling over wording on Friday, one senior delegate  described the result as a "good compromise". Kenya said it had  not sought a walk-out but said others had supported the idea.                

Some Africans, including officials from heavyweights South  African and Nigeria, had prior to the meeting indicated there  was not broad backing for a walk-out from a court that received  the backing of many Africans when it was set up.                

London-based rights group Amnesty International urged  African nations meeting in the Ethiopian capital not to cut ties  with the court, saying victims of crimes deserved justice.                

"The ICC should expand its work outside Africa, but it does  not mean that its eight current investigations in African  countries are without basis," Amnesty's deputy director of law  and policy, Tawanda Hondora, said in a statement.                

Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed said she was satisfied  with the outcome of Friday's talks, adding that immunity for a  sitting president was "a principle that has existed for a long  time" in international law.                

Lawyers for Kenyatta asked on Thursday that his trial on  charges of crimes against humanity be abandoned, saying defence  witnesses had been intimidated.                

Ruto went on trial in The Hague last month and Kenyatta's  trial is due to start on Nov. 12.

Source: African Union: ICC Should Not Prosecute Sitting Heads Of State