The United States confirmed that they were opposed to Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir travelling to Libya, as he is wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland acknowledged that the issue was raised with Libyan officials, but the US only learnt about the trip relatively late.
She told reporters,
“The Libyan Government knows our view that we oppose invitations, facilitation, or support for travel by President Bashir because he’s a subject of an ICC arrest warrant.We have a long policy of urging other nations to do the same, and obviously we have long supported efforts to bring those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity and war crimes to justice.”
Nuland did however note that “this is a first time as a free government they’ve had to encounter these issues, they’ve been sort of outside this statute for some time”.
Several other African states have been come under criticism over their failure to arrest Bashir on visits, with both Chad and Malawi being referred to the UN Security Council.
See our earlier post: Sudan’s Bashir visits Libya (08 Jan 2012)
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