Sudan head ditches Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia

CAIRO: Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir, indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), has decided not to attend an Islamic-US meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Sudan’s official news agency reported yesterday: “President al-Bashir offered his apology to (Saudi) King Salman for not attending the Islamic-American summit due to special reasons.”

Al-Bashir has asked a minister to represent him at the summit with US President Donald Trump and several Arab and Islamic leaders in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, tomorrow.

US leaders have shunned meetings with al-Bashir since the ICC issued arrest warrants for him in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

Al-Bashir has denied the charges and accused The Hague-based tribunal of being a “colonial tool” against his country.

The Sudanese leader has since travelled abroad several times without being arrested, including to South Africa in June 2015, when he attended an AU summit in Johannesburg.

Sudanese and Saudi officials had said earlier that al-Bashir had been invited for the meeting, which is aimed at building a partnership between the US and the Muslim world against extremism. – dpa

President Omar al-Bashir