The U.N. Security Council was split on Thursday over where to try war crime cases from Sudan's Darfur region, with Europe, China and the United States pushing different options and diplomats seeing no easy solution. For the first time, 12 of the 15 Security Council members decided that perpetrators of atrocities should go before the new International Criminal Court in The Hague, which the Bush administration opposes. Opposition during consultations late on Wednesday also came from China and Algeria, which agreed with Sudan that Khartoum should use its own courts and want no referral to either the ICC or to a U.S.-proposed new ad hoc court in Tanzania. Although the Bush administration has been in the forefront of recommending tough action on Sudan, it rejects using the ICC, which it fears could bring political prosecutions against Americans abroad. Instead it has lobbied for a new court for Sudan be convened in Arusha, Tanzania, using facilities of the 1994 Rwanda genocide tribunal. "Our position hasn't changed," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. --More 0132 Local Time 2232 GMT
