An alleged senior commander of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahma—also known as "Ali Kushayb"—has been charged with 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
According to Human Rights Watch, "the mass rape and killings and other abuses appear part of widespread and systematic attacks on civilian populations that may constitute crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity are serious offenses, including murder, torture, and rape, committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population."
Ali Kushayb is accused of committing a number of crimes between August 2003 and April 2004, including murder, attempted murder, pillaging, rape, torture, and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population in the Darfur region of Sudan. The Janjaweed—which has now been rebranded the Rapid Support Forces—was a Sudanese Arab-dominated militia whose fighters tended to ride horses and camels.
The conflict that began in 2003 is estimated to have cost the lives of at least 300,000 civilians and displaced almost three million more.
Abd-Al-Rahman has pleaded not guilty to all charges at the beginning of the trial. But at the opening trial in April 2022, Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the ICC, argued that there was a "strong" case against Abd-Al-Rahman. "Witness after witness saw him, heard him, recognized him," he said. "Witness after witness knew Mr. Abd-Al-Rahman from before."
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