South Africa to review membership of world court after Bashir row
Minister says quitting international criminal court would be a last resort, after criticism for allowing Sudanese president to leave country
Reuters in Cape Town, Thursday 25 June 2015 11.43 BST, Source
Omar al-Bashir arrives in Khartoum on 15 June after attending an African Union conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photograph: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters
South Africa will review its membership of the international criminal court, a cabinet minister has said, after a dispute over Pretoria’s failure to arrest the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir.
The row erupted on 15 June when Bashir left South Africa as world powers and activists urged the government to arrest him under an ICC warrant on charges of masterminding genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Jeff Radebe, the minister in the presidency, told reporters in a post-cabinet meeting briefing: “Cabinet decided that it will review South Africa’s participation in the Rome statutes of the international [criminal] court.”
He said the government would leave only as a last resort. “Such a decision will only be taken when South Africa has exhausted all the remedies available to it,” he added.
Bashir, who was in South Africa for a summit of the African Union, was allowed to fly out of the country even though a Pretoria court had issued an order banning him from leaving until the end of a hearing on his case.
On Wednesday a South African judge asked prosecutors to consider charging government officials over the decision to allow Bashir to leave.
South Africa’s government was due to issue an affidavit in court on Thursday explaining why it allowed Bashir to leave, but its contents were not expected to be made public immediately.