George Platt, writing for Beijing Times

This weekend, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir is being trialed in the International Criminal Court for having committed five counts of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape; two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities, and pillaging; three counts of genocide: by killing, by causing serious bodily or mental harm, and by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, allegedly committed at least between 2003 and 2008 in Darfur, Sudan .

The conflict began in 2003 when the SLM/A and JEM had accused the Sudanese government of discrimination of non-arabs in the Darfur region. As a form of response, the Sudanese government began to fight the rebels with it’s militia. In 2008, the ICC accused Al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The attackers (the militia) did not take precautions to let the civilians leave, allowing many innocent people to die. The 3 parties involved include the Sudanese Government, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army.

The Defense believes that the conflict was complicated, and that the perpetrators were the Sudanese Liberation Army. They also explained that he was ‘misunderstood’ and popular as well, primarily exemplified  by the fact he was reelected as president multiple times. 

The Prosecutors have retaliated by showing numerous accounts of a woman that was subjected to. Her accounts include stories of her being kidnapped, raped and having her whole family killed. More witnesses and victims are supposed to be joining to testify for or against the defendant later on today.