COURTESY THE ILLEGAL ACTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICA
Today on 7 April 2017 SA defends its reasons in front of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands why it did not arrest Omar Al Bashir, the incumbent president of Sudan when he was in Sandton, South Africa during June 2015. There are no less than two international warrants of arrest out in respect of Al Bashir. And yet South Africa reneged on its international and national legal obligations to have him arrested.
On instructions from Numba One the court application in Pretoria was vigorously defended. The State Advocates even requested the court for more time to prepare!! I have my own mind about this lot!
However, the Court and later the Supreme Court of Appeal found that SA had an international obligation to arrest the man and that SA did not fulfill that obligation.
The ICC issued a notice calling on SA to come to court and state its reasons, if any, why it did not arrest him. And of course papers were filed to set out SA's version. The versions put forward by the ICC and SA differ widely and in material respects.
If you accept SA's version it is as innocent as a new born babe! It even went so far as to deny having attended a specific meeting with the ICC. If you accept the ICC version, it is clear that more than one person on behalf of SA are blatantly lying and hiding somewhere.
Please read the
ICC papers at this link. I quote shortly from the ICC papers.
SA alleges that no article 97 consultations had taken place prior to the
issuance by the Presiding Judge of Pre-Trial Chamber II. It further alleges that South Africa received “no notice whatsoever” of the
urgent request made by the Prosecution on 13 June 2015
(“Urgent Request”) prior to the issuance of the Decision.
The ICC response to that is: Consultations took place at the Court on 12 June 2015 between
the Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to the Netherlands (“Ambassador”) and the Court prior to the
issuance of the Decision. These consultations ended on that
day. The Presiding Judge in his Decision was unequivocal
when he stated “as there exists no issue which remains unclear
or has not already been explicitly discussed and settled by the
Court, the consultations under article 97 of the Statute between
the Court and the Republic of South Africa have therefore
ended”
In respect of the allegation that SA did not receive a notice from the court, the ICC states clearly the following: South Africa’s assertion in respect of notice is also factually incorrect:
immediately after filing the Urgent Request with the Registry the Prosecution
emailed a courtesy copy of the Urgent Request to the Ambassador. Shortly
thereafter, the Prosecution spoke on the telephone directly with the South
African Chief State Law Adviser (“Law Adviser”), who was present in The
Hague, and offered to email him a copy of the Urgent Request. The Law
Adviser declined to provide his email address to the Prosecution for this purpose and therefore it was impossible to email him a second courtesy copy of
the Urgent Request. The Chamber subsequently issued the Decision.
Let us wait and see what the outcome will be. I will keep you updated.
