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2nd LD Writethru: S. African ruling party announces decision to withdraw from ICC

Xinhua, October 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) on Sunday announced its decision to withdraw South Africa's membership from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The decision was made at a meeting of the ruling party's National General Council (NGC), said Obed Bapela, Head of the ANC's International Relations Commission.

"The NGC has just resolved that South Africa should withdraw from the International Criminal Court. However, only after we have followed certain processes,"he told reporters.

The decision was made due to the fact that the ICC has lost its direction and is no longer pursuing its guiding principle, Bapela said.

South Africa and the ICC are at loggerheads after the government failed to abide by an ICC warrant to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he was attending an African Union (AU) summit in Johannesburg in mid-June this year.

South Africa, as signatory to the Rome Statute which created the ICC, is obliged to follow ICC orders. The ICC has two arrest warrants on al-Bashir on charges for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Bapela said the ANC still believes in the principles that guided the decision to join the court in the first place.

"However, the ICC has lost its direction unfortunately and it's no longer pursuing that principle,"Bapela said.

South Africa's recent refusal to arrest al-Bashir while he was in South Africa highlighted that in addition to complying with its obligations to the ICC, the country has obligations to the African Union and African countries, the ANC said earlier.

Under the AU rules, no organization can arrest any sitting head of state in African countries.

The ANC has voiced concern about selective application of law by the ICC which it says targets only "Africans".

The al-Bashir saga is expected to re-emerge if he attends the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, set for early December in Johannesburg.

But South Africa's withdrawal from the ICC will close the case for good. Enditem