UN: Sudan must do more to co- operate with war crimes investigators searching for the ringleaders of the Darfur massacres, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the United Nations in New York yesterday.
Luis Moreno Ocampo said Sudan had not yet issued him a visa to investigate killings and butchery that have left 180,000 dead and two million homeless.
Mr Ocampo told the UN Security Council that Sudan had yet to give "specific, full and unfettered co-operation."
Khartoum says it will hold its own trials of 160 alleged suspects and has yet to allow Mr Ocampo or his investigations into the country.
"We didn't invite him. Let him ask," said Sudan's UN ambassador, Al Tatih Urwah. "We will let him in if he asks."
The ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region of southern Sudan is one of the worst war crimes of recent times and is set to be a major test for the United Nations.
For the first time, the UN has linked up with the International Criminal Court for a war crimes prosecution, made possible after the United States secured immunity from prosecution for its nationals.
Privately, some UN officials think Sudan is stone-walling, and that it will cease co-operation altogether if, as seems likely, the president and senior cabinet members are accused of orchestrating the ethnic cleansing.
If Sudan refuses to hand over suspects, it will test the fragile unity of the Security Council, which is already divided over issues including Iraq and global warming.
"The rubber will hit the road when he requests access from the government of Sudan," Richard Dicker, international justice director of United States-based Human Rights Watch, told The Irish Times.
"We have seen too many times this [ Security] Council inspired by justice abandoning prosecutors when the going gets tough."