The Arab League criticized the International Criminal Court's “unbalanced” prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying Sudan's courts should judge alleged ‘crimes', and diplomacy should be given a priority to solve the Darfur conflict. Arab foreign ministers, holding an emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday, said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa would head to Khartoum on Sunday to inform the Sudanese leadership of a plan to defuse the crisis. Moussa said he would announce the details within two days. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday asked ICC judges to issue a warrant for Bashir's arrest on genocide charges, which, if granted, would be the first ever issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state. The resolution criticized Moreno-Ocampo's “unbalanced stance” for asking ICC judges to issue a warrant for Bashir's arrest, saying it threatens peace prospects in Darfur. The final communique of the meeting said the ministers “called for giving the priority for political settlement ... and called for an international high-profile summit to push the political process in Darfur.” Earlier in the day, Algeria urged other Arab nations to press the United Nations Security Council to prevent the ICC from issuing the arrest warrant for Bashir. “What the prosecutor of the court has done is a dangerous precedent,” Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci told his Arab counterparts. “We have (to take) ... a strong stance in solidarity with our brothers in Sudan and move effectively with regional and international organizations and the ... states in the Security Council to immediately reconsider this demand by the prosecutor,” he said, according to extracts of his speech. Khartoum has consistently rejected the ICC's jurisdiction, saying it would try alleged war criminals in its own courts. League chief Moussa and other Arab leaders have suggested that the ICC could not prosecute Bashir because he has immunity as a head of state, but Article 27 of the Rome Treaty specifically excludes that possibility. The ICC “shall apply equally to all persons without any distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as a head of state... shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility,” it says. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade on Thursday asked the ICC to freeze its prosecution for a year, citing Article 16 of the Rome Statute which created the court. “If the prosecution of Al-Bashir continues, the situation in Darfur could worsen and plunge into indescribable chaos,” Wade warned.
