S. African court issues order to arrest Sudan's president as he leaves

The High Court in Pretoria on Monday ruled that Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir must be arrested, but the order came hours after al-Bashir had left S. Africa.

Al-Bashir left the country around noon on Monday despite an order from the same court, preventing him from doing so.

Handing down a judgment on an urgent application filed by the Southern African Litigation Center to have al-Bashir arrested, Judge President Dunstan Mlambo said the government's failure to arrest Bashir "is inconsistent with the Constitution".

The court decided that the SA government "must take steps to detain him (al-Bashir), pending a formal request from the ICC (International Criminal Court)", Mlambo said.

"It has been clear that we were concerned as a court whether we were in jurisdiction," the judge added.

The court ordered on Sunday that al-Bashir could not leave South Africa until after the urgent application for his arrest was heard.

Al-Bashir was in South Africa to attend an African Union (AU) summit in Johannesburg. The South African government has given immunity to all African leaders, including al-Bashir attending the AU summit. This means that no African leader can be arrested while the summit was going on. The summit is scheduled to end on later Monday.

The ICC has requested South Africa to arrest al-Bashir when he came to the country to attend the summit. Al-Bashir is wanted for alleged crimes against humanity.

Lawyer William Mokhari, told the court that the SA government "now has reliable information" that al-Bashir has already departed SA.

The lawyer said earlier in the day that al-Bashir's plane flew out of the Waterkloof Air Base near Pretoria around noon on Monday, but al-Bashir's name was not on the list of passengers.

Hours later, Sudanese television footage showed al-Bashir descending from a plane that arrived at the Khartoum airport. He appeared relaxed as he greeted a group of Sudanese officials.

Al-Bashir's presence has overshadowed the AU summit.

South Africa, being a signatory to the Roman Statue, has an obligation to arrest al-Bashir and hand him over to the ICC.

Meanwhile, South Africa is also a signatory to the AU article that give sitting presidents immunity from arrests and calling on all African countries not to cooperate with the ICC, barring the country from arresting the Sudanese president.

The AU has accused the ICC of deliberately targeting African leaders.

At the current AU summit, African leaders were deliberating a proposal which would urge the ICC to suspend all cases against sitting presidents with the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), conference sources said. Endi