Judges at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced a Janjaweed militia leader to 20 years in prison for atrocities committed in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, was convicted in October on 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, and orchestrating rape and other atrocities carried out by Janjaweed militias more than 20 years ago.

In their sentencing judgement, judges rejected defence arguments that Mr Abd-Al-Rahman had limited authority and expressed empathy for the victims.

“Abd-Al-Rahman not only gave orders that led directly to the crimes but also personally perpetrated them,” presiding judge Joanna Korner said.

The trial chamber imposed a joint sentence of 20 years, a term that likely means the 76-year-old will die in prison.

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, describing Mr Abd-Al-Rahman, who once used an axe to kill two people, as literally an axe murderer.

His defence argued he was a victim of mistaken identity and claimed that any sentence beyond seven years would amount to a de facto life term, given his age.

The ruling closes the ICC’s first-ever trial addressing the Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against Sudan’s government, accusing it of marginalising the remote western region.

In response, Sudan’s then-government mobilised Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to crush the revolt, unleashing violence that the U.S. and human rights groups said amounted to genocide.

The United Nations Security Council referred the case to the ICC in 2005.

The Hague-based court was established to prosecute the gravest crimes when local courts fail.

Fresh clashes broke out in Darfur and across Sudan in 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, widely seen as successors to the Janjaweed.

Fighting in Darfur, particularly its city of al-Fashir, has unleashed waves of ethnically driven killings and caused mass displacement.

(Reuters/NAN)