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The International
Criminal Court issued a second arrest warrant on Monday for Sudan’s
President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for the crime of genocide.

Bashir, who faces
an ICC arrest warrant from March 2009 for war crimes and crimes against
humanity, has dismissed the court’s claims that he is responsible for
crimes in the Darfur region leading to the death of as many as 300,000
people; and a campaign of “rape, hunger, and fear” against a further
2.5 million in refugee camps.

“There are
reasonable grounds to believe him responsible for three counts of
genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups,
that include: genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily
or mental harm ,and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target
group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical
destruction,” ICC appeals judges said in a statement.

Bashir says the
allegations made by the ICC, the world’s first permanent court for
prosecuting war crimes, are part of a Western conspiracy. The ICC
warrant was the first issued against a sitting head of state by the
court.

When the court
first issued the arrest warrant, it ruled there were insufficient
grounds for a charge of genocide, but ICC prosecutor, Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, had argued for reopening the case for genocide, which
was granted in February.

The ICC has no police force and depends on national authorities and states that have signed up to the court to make arrests.

Bashir has visited several countries not bound by the court’s rules
since the warrant was issued, but the charge of genocide could further
restrict his movements and make it harder for him to rely on support
from other countries, given the gravity of the charges.