Is Sudan’s Army refusing, for a second time, to hand over an “International Criminal” accused of genocide?

After the head of Sudan’s dissolved National Congress Party fled prison following the outbreak of the civil war in mid-April 2023, he resurfaced under the protection of Port Sudan authorities’ forces in territories under army control, raising questions about the possibility of his handover, given that he is a criminal wanted by international justice.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant for Ahmed Haroun in 2007. He is accused of 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 22 counts of war crimes, including murder, rape, torture, persecution and forcible displacement, as well as launching attacks on civilians through militias that he financed and recruited.

The ICC in The Hague continues to demand Haroun’s surrender, confirming on its official website that the case remains active. Meanwhile, the United States has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest, surrender or conviction, describing him as responsible for recruiting, financing and arming the militias that committed atrocities against civilians in Darfur.

Accused of Genocide Under the Protection of the Sudanese Army

Reuters revealed that officials from the party of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s former president who was ousted by a popular revolution in April 2019, confirmed that army authorities in Port Sudan had arrested Haroun, who is formally accused of committing genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s.

Haroun appeared in a podcast interview in which he sought to justify the army’s cooperation with Islamists. However, he also disclosed details of their relationship, which Port Sudan authorities have consistently denied, in an apparent attempt to conceal an alliance that has drawn criticism from the country’s civil, popular and political forces.

According to Reuters, the International Criminal Court has yet to issue any response, particularly given that Sudan’s military authorities had previously arrested Haroun but refused to hand him over to the ICC, before he escaped during a prison assault at the outbreak of the current civil war more than three years ago.

Haroun belongs to the National Congress Party, which is deeply rooted in Sudan’s Islamist movement and the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood organisation. The movement dominated power in Sudan from the beginning of former President Omar al-Bashir’s rule in the 1990s until 2019. Although the party was dissolved, it continues to seek a renewed presence in territories and positions under the control of the Sudanese army.

Sudanese politician and Secretary-General of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, Yasser Arman, maintained that the Sudanese army was fully aware of every detail surrounding the podcast in which Haroun appeared, and that the recording took place at a location entirely under its protection.

In an article published by several Sudanese newspapers, Arman confirmed that Haroun conducted his televised interview under army protection at the Al Salam Rotana Hotel, where he may still be staying to keep him out of public view. The Sudanese politician ridiculed the “set design, filming quality and programme, which are entirely at odds with the famine, economic collapse, water and electricity cuts in Sudan, and which mock the people.”

Arman pointed out that the army had kept Ahmed Haroun and the programme crew who recorded the podcast at a hotel in central Khartoum, away from the war and its dangers in other locations, where people are being deprived of their right to life. He added: “Haroun sat addressing people from the ICC’s balcony, lecturing the hungry, determining Sudan’s future and distributing what he does not own to those who do not deserve it, with the ICC’s predicament and the December Revolution behind him.”

He stressed that “the Al Salam Hotel that hosted Haroun has become a headquarters for warlords. Anyone who does not believe this should go there early in the morning, at breakfast time, to see militia commanders in the hotel lobby and dining hall.” He also sarcastically questioned the army’s seriousness about arresting him, asserting that Port Sudan authorities would most likely place him at the Al Salam Rotana Hotel “because the services and communications there are better.”

Mark Kersten, an expert in international law and international criminal justice, wrote that Port Sudan authorities had “arrested Haroun for the second time, and on both occasions refused or failed to hand him over,” ultimately asking: “Who is protecting Haroun? And what are they hiding there?”

The Sudanese human rights group Emergency Lawyers also called for Haroun to be handed over to justice, given that he is a criminal accused of dozens of crimes and atrocities committed against civilians in Darfur and other locations during the years preceding the December Revolution, which ousted Bashir in 2019. The group rejected the continued political manoeuvring and compromises by the leadership of the military authorities in Port Sudan, as well as the protection of a criminal who has evaded justice.