More than 100 registered victims of a 2007 raid on an African Union base in northern Darfur will not see the case reach trial, after judges at the International Criminal Court terminated proceedings against Abdallah Banda on Thursday.
Banda, who has never been taken into custody, stood accused of three counts of war crimes tied to the assault on the peacekeeping camp. Prosecutors themselves asked for the charges to be withdrawn, telling the chamber that the strength of their evidence had collapsed to the point where a conviction was no longer realistic.
Judges granted the request but made clear they disagreed with the reasoning behind it. A written ruling released last week, and summarized in a court statement Thursday, said the chamber “found that the Prosecution had not demonstrated that the evidence supporting the confirmed charges deteriorated to an extent such that the case could no longer proceed to trial.”
What forced their hand, the judges said, was the office’s refusal to argue the case at all. Continuing under those conditions, they wrote, “would be in contravention of the Chamber’s ultimate obligation to ensure a fair and efficient trial.”
The prosecution’s filing pointed to two developments it described as decisive: two witnesses central to the original theory of the case were no longer regarded as credible, and a fresh witness had surfaced with an account that could work in Banda’s favor. An outside analyst brought in to review the material reached the same conclusion, according to the office. “As a result, the Prosecution now no longer considers there are reasonable prospects of convicting Mr. Banda on any of the charges against him,” the filing stated.
Prosecutors also conceded the cost of the decision to the 103 victims attached to the case, noting they had waited more than 15 years for accountability over the attack.
The withdrawal lands at a difficult moment for the institution. Chief prosecutor Karim Khan is due to face a vote Friday by the court’s 125 member states on whether he should be removed over sexual misconduct allegations involving a female aide, which he denies. The court is separately contending with a push by the Trump administration to dismantle it.
Darfur itself remains an active concern for the office. Deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the U.N. Security Council last year that conditions there had reached what she called an intolerable state, citing spreading famine and attacks on hospitals, aid convoys and other civilian targets. Prosecutors maintain that war crimes and crimes against humanity are still being committed in the region, where fighting has continued for over two years.
Earlier ICC efforts tied to the conflict have produced mixed results. A Janjaweed commander was convicted and given a 20-year sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the violence of the early 2000s. Omar al-Bashir, president at the time, was charged with genocide among other counts, but has never been transferred to The Hague, even after losing power and being taken into custody in Sudan.
