ICC says war crimes committed in Sudan

**Celia Hatton** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 9th of July, these are our main stories. The Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court tells the BBC there's concrete evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed in Darfur during Sudan's civil war. A second night of heavy American strikes on Iran, we ask our international editor how close we are to war breaking out again. And we have a special report on a measles outbreak that has killed hundreds of children in Bangladesh.
Also in this podcast, King Charles pardons the last woman to die by execution more than seven decades ago after recognizing she was an abuse victim.

**Laura Enston** (0:48)
Ruth was betrayed at the time of the execution to be this cold-blooded killer, looking at her behavior through a modern day lens. We now realize that was a traumatized woman.

**Celia Hatton** (0:59)
And a surprising winner at Wimbledon. Stay tuned to find out who.
The International Criminal Court has told the BBC that it's found concrete evidence of crimes against humanity committed in Darfur during Sudan's civil war. The deputy prosecutor, Nizat Shamim Khan, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces perpetuated atrocities in two cities while fighting government forces. The RSF has admitted some abuses took place, but says they were not as widespread as some have alleged. The BBC's Africa correspondent, Thomas McQuanness, spoke with Ms. Khan while she was in Chad and asked her for an update on the ICC investigation.

**Nizat Shamim Khan** (1:44)
We saw that in this conflict, in the context of El Janena and El Fasher, we considered that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed. And in the ongoing investigations that we are conducting, we are sure that that is exactly what is happening. That we have now found concrete evidence that links what is happening on the ground through linkage evidence to specific persons in leadership mode. We cannot say any more than that. We've been following that strategy now for months, certainly with a focus on Al Janena and Al Fasher.
And we have now reached a point where we consider that we have achieved a breakthrough in the evidence that we have obtained, not just testimonial evidence, but also corroborative evidence in the form of videos and photographs and forensic evidence, which give us a great deal of hope that the strategy we adopted is bearing fruit. What we see is patterns of offending, that in fact were the same patterns of offending 20 years ago, when this situation was first referred to us by the Security Council. This targeting of civilians, and we do see the targeting of non-Arab and other targeted Dhafuri communities.
We also see this inherent presence of sexual violence, both of men and women, but largely of women. And we consider that that overall picture of persecution, of torture, of rape, of killing, we see that is very much reflective of the overall offending.

**Thomas McQuanness** (3:19)
The people that you spoke to, what do they say about the alleged perpetrators?

**Nizat Shamim Khan** (3:23)
Well, they've given us a great deal of detail. As I said earlier, we do not share the names of the perpetrators. We really need to protect the way that our investigations are being conducted, so that our evidence is sufficient and protected for the court, and confidentiality is always protected. But they have been very forthright in the evidence and the identification evidence that they have given us.

**Thomas McQuanness** (3:48)
The ICC has been through this before. Omar Arbashir has never been brought to justice years after what happened in Darfur.
Why should this be any different?

**Nizat Shamim Khan** (3:56)
I think that there is now a greater focus on the way that we gather evidence, that we have got better at using technology in innovative ways to gather evidence.
I think we have done very well in building cooperation with states, not just in the region, but everywhere.
Having said that, we do not have a police force, we do not have an army. So the surrender of suspects to the ICC always depends on state action and state willingness. We have a very active and a very capable tracking unit, which tracks where suspects are. We know where these suspects are in the context of the old arrest warrants including Mr. Arbashir. And we have on many occasions said at the Security Council that we asked Sudan to surrender these suspects to us. And I don't think that there is any doubt on in anyone's mind about our wish to have them in the court.

**Celia Hatton** (4:50)
Nizat Shami Khan speaking to Thomas McWanna.