By Jonathan Ambaye
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa Desk

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – On Monday, February 8, 2010 the judges of the International Criminal Court ruled that there is not enough evidence to send Darfur rebel Leader, Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, to trial on charges he commanded an attack on African Union peacekeepers in 2007.
Garda is alleged to have ordered over 1,000 members of the different factions of the Justice and Equality Movement in an attack with a multitude of military weaponry, on the Haskanita base of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in North Darfur.

 A panel of three judges, in a 103 pg decision, said that prosecution failed to prove Garda, who is the leader of the Darfur United Resistance Front (“URF”) played a role in the killings of 12 soldiers in 2007.  The courts chamber said, “Considered as a whole, the evidence of the prosecution witnesses from AMIS regarding the purported existence of an armed group under the command and control of Mr. Abu Garda in the area of Haskanita at or around the time of the attack is not sufficient to support the prosecution’s allegations.” The chamber further said, “The same evidence appears, rather to point to other individual acting as commanders of rebel armed groups in the area”.  Garda was the first of many individuals to appear before “The Hague based court in connection with the Darfur case.” Garda surrendered himself voluntarily last year to confront the charges he adamantly says he not guilty of.
 The judges based their ruling on the lack of consistency in the prosecutions primary argument. The prosecution’s case rested on testimony by seven witnesses who spoke to two meetings that took place prior to the attacks. The testimony failed to convince the judges that Garda was present saying, “that the cumulative evidence is weak and unreliable due to inconsistencies inherent in them.”

This decision actually marks “the first time in the history of the court that the prosecution failed to move a case past the confirmation of charges hearings on at least one of the counts contained in a summons to appear or an arrest warrant.”
For more information please see:
All Africa – Hague Court Attacks Prosecution Evidence– 9 February 2010

BBC – ICC Rejects Darfur Rebel Charges – 9 February, 2010

Sudan Tribune – Darfur Rebel Leader Cleared of War Crimes Charges – 9 February, 2010