Bashir, who has ruled Sudan since a 1989 Islamist and army-backed
coup, rejects the ICC's authority and has flouted the warrant before,
travelling inside the Middle East and Africa.
Sudan's Bashir defies international arrest warrant with trip to Uganda(Reuters)
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir began a two-day visit to Uganda
on Thursday, the official Sudanese news agency said, in defiance of an
international warrant for his arrest over accusations of genocide.
The Hague-based International Criminal Court
(ICC) issued arrest warrants for Bashir in 2009 and 2010, accusing him
of masterminding genocide and other atrocities in his campaign to crush a
revolt in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Uganda
is a member of the ICC, which means it is required to act on the arrest
warrant. The trip is Bashir's first to Uganda since the ICC warrants
were issued and follows Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's visit to Khartoum last year.
Bashir,
who has ruled Sudan since a 1989 Islamist and army-backed coup, rejects
the ICC's authority and has flouted the warrant before, travelling
inside the Middle East and Africa.
He has also visited China and Indonesia, which are not ICC members, over the past year.
Last
June, Bashir was forced to flee South Africa, a member of the ICC,
after a court ruled he should be banned from leaving pending the outcome
of a hearing on his possible arrest.
In March
South Africa's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the government
against a ruling that said the state had made an error in letting Bashir
leave the country despite a court order.
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