It represents an infrequent triumph for international courts of law struggling against a swelling tide of state-sanctioned lawlessness. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, a commander of the notorious, state-backed Janjaweed paramilitary group responsible for mass extermination in Sudan's Darfur area from 2003 to 2005, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars last week by the world court. He had been found guilty on twenty-seven counts of violations of the laws of war and atrocities targeting civilians.
Although hundreds of militia members taking part, Abd-al-Rahman, who also goes by the name Ali Kushayb, is the very first person to be found guilty of atrocities in Darfur, an area currently again the scene of terrible bloodshed in the nation's civil war. The ICC has formally accused Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's leader at the time, with acts of genocide and war crimes. Ahmad Harun, a one-time minister, faces similar charges. But the two men have so far evaded capture.
“I have no regrets,” he told me, dismissing an ICC warrant for his arrest alleging his complicity in as many as 200,000 deaths in Darfur as politically driven. “What I did was legal, it was my duty, it was my duty.”
Haughty assertions of having broken no laws, of possessing no case to answer, of simply performing one’s “duty,” get to the heart of a growing modern problem: official unaccountability. Whether guilty or innocent, neither Bashir nor Harun thought they would ever face international justice, and to date they have been proved correct. In this belief they are no different from Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, the American defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the Russian Vladimir Putin.
A Trio Facing Allegations and Defiant
This unsavoury trio are variously alleged to have committed atrocities by the ICC, the UN, and human rights organizations. Each is said to have overseen the cold-blooded slaughter, mistreatment or mass abduction of civilian populations. All three categorically reject all accusations. All assert their conduct are warranted, regardless of what the law, public opinion or basic ethics may say. All with arrogance believe they are untouchable.
Netanyahu is battling on several arenas to save his political life and avoid jail. Similar to Gaza, his personal reputation is now in ruins. Israel's leader wants his long-running trial in Jerusalem’s district court on corruption and bribery charges to be halted in the “interest of the state”. He claims he would rather to demonstrate his innocence, he states, but in an act of patriotic generosity, to mend the country’s divisions, he says he’s willing to accept a pardon.
The sheer nerve of the man! Netanyahu has repeatedly, cynically exploited those very divisions to cling to power. Full to bursting with chutzpah, he is also resisting a comprehensive, independent investigation into his government’s disastrous lapses before the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks. Opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman, along with others, accuses him of orchestrating a “whitewash” to protect himself.
Evading Accountability in Gaza and Beyond
Yet it is Netanyahu’s despicable attempt to dodge a reckoning with the ICC over Gaza – where his government is accused of genocide – that most dramatically shows the pernicious effect of official unaccountability. Rather than defend himself in court, Netanyahu hides behind Donald Trump in Washington or remains hidden at home to evade detention. In Gaza, at the same time, starving children persist in suffer – under his command.
If Hegseth, the Pentagon’s recent action-oriented man, swapped his overly tight trousers for a more comfortable fit, maybe he would feel less aggressively stubborn. He’s somehow persuaded himself that killing dozens of unidentified people on boats in the Caribbean, on unsubstantiated allegations of drug smuggling, is acceptable and lawful – and not an unwarranted act of brutality.
Various dubious excuses are advanced. The US claims it has obtained “intelligence” that substantiates its claims (though not from Britain, which frowns on executions without trial and is declining to assist). The those killed, considered to belong to “terrorist groups”, are lawful targets, it argues. Courts and attorneys can state what they like. For Hegseth, Trump’s foppish hitman, only one man's opinion matters.
Impunity Spells Anarchy
That’s the face of unaccountability. That, precisely there, is an end to the rule of law. That’s the world’s most powerful state saying it does not respects basic rules that, flawed as they may be yet vitally, bind human society together. Off the coast of Venezuela, US forces, killing at will and seizing oil tankers, act just like Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa or Yemen’s Houthi rebels, randomly firing missiles at Red Sea shipping. Impunity heralds anarchy.
No surprise that Putin – another strongman on the run by the ICC – believes he, too, can get away with murder. Indeed, in his infamous 28-point Ukraine “proposal”, Trump attempted to secure protection from prosecution for Russia's leader. He is also trying to destroy the ICC with sanctions. What sort of example is currently set by the US? How can Britain and Europe still act as if it is a like-minded ally, or a friend?
Acting lawlessly abroad as they do domestically, Trump’s lawless, deadly enforcers are the new Janjaweed. And like Ali Kushayb, Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Hegseth and all the other grinning killers must eventually be brought to justice by a tribunal.
