News Article by AFP posted on August 20, 2008 at 10:18:01: EST (-5 GMT)
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No Sudan Citizen Will Ever Be Tried Abroad-Sudanese President ISTANBUL (AFP)-- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, named as a possible war crimes suspect in Darfur, said Wednesday that no citizen of his country would ever be handed over to international justice. "We categorically reject that any Sudanese be tried outside Sudan...We will never surrender any citizen to be tried abroad," Bashir told a news conference in Istanbul, where he attended the Turkey-Africa Cooperation Summit. Bashir's visit to Istanbul was his first trip abroad since a prosecutor of The Hague-based International Criminal Court asked last month for his arrest on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the war-ravaged region of Darfur. Bashir said the prosecutor's move was encouraging rebels in Darfur to fuel unrest to unseat the government. "The attempt to use the so-called international justice against the country...is an attempt to encourage rebel groups opposing peace to continue destruction and destabilization...to topple the regime in Sudan," he said. Sudan has "its own judicial institutions...(and) is capable of trying anyone who violates justice," he added, stressing that some members of the military were already put on trial. Sudan refuses to recognize or have any dealings with the ICC. Many African and Arab states have also called on the court not to interfere in Darfur, arguing that its drive to prosecute war crimes could harm efforts to bring peace to the region. Turkey organized the summit in a bid to boost political and economic ties with Africa and drum up support for its bid for a non-permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council for 2009-10. Leaders of about 50 African countries attended the conference, which ends Wednesday.
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