9:26pm UK, Wednesday February 03, 2010

Tim Hewage,
Sky News Online

Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir could still face genocide charges, an international court has ruled.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in March last year on five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes committed in Darfur.

But it did not press genocide charges, a decision it must now reconsider in the light of the appeals ruling.

The United Nations says up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million fled their homes since ethnic minority rebels rose up against Sudan’s Arab-dominated regime in February 2003.

Bashir’s arrest warrant was the first ever issued for a sitting head of state by the ICC.

The Sudanese leader denies all the charges levelled against him

It prompted him to expel international aid agencies from the Darfur region last year.

Sudan dismissed the latest ruling as political meddling aimed at hindering Sudan’s first democratic elections in 24 years, which are due to be held in April.

Rabie Abdelati, a senior information ministry official in the capital Khartoum, said: “We are not bothering actually what the ICC will say, whether it includes genocide or not.”

Bashir has repeatedly dismissed the allegations made by the ICC and refused to co-operate with the court.