THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court on Monday asked for a life sentence for a leader of the feared Janjaweed militia convicted of playing a major role in a campaign of atrocities committed in the Sudanese region of Darfur more than 20 years ago — including ordering mass executions and bludgeoning two prisoners to death with an ax.
“You literally have an axe murderer before you,” prosecutor Julian Nicholls told judges in The Hague as Ali Muhammad Ali Abd–Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, looked on.
Last month, Abd–Al-Rahman was convicted of 27 counts, including mass murders and rapes, for leading Janjaweed militia forces that went on a campaign of killing and destruction in 2003-2004. It was the first time the court had convicted a suspect of crimes in Darfur.
“He committed these crimes knowingly, willfully, and with, the evidence shows, enthusiasm and vigor,” Nicholls said.
Abd–Al-Rahman 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.
The defense will take the floor later in the week and has asked for a seven-year sentence, which would allow the 76-year-old to be released in the next 18 months, considering time served.
Abd–Al-Rahman surrendered to authorities in the Central African Republic, near the border with Sudan, in 2020.
Rebels from Darfur’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.
The sentencing hearing comes as Sudan has plunged into further violence. Last week, the U.N.’s top human rights body held a one-day special session to highlight hundreds of killings at a hospital in Sudan’s Darfur region and other atrocities blamed on paramilitary forces fighting the army in the northeast African country.
The military and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, went to war in 2023, when tensions erupted between them. The army and RSF are former allies that were supposed to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 uprising.
The latest fighting has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, and displaced 12 million others.
