Bashir, who faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted
of the five counts, has threatened to retaliate, Middle East Newsline reported. Western embassies in
Khartoum as well as United Nations peace-keepers have already increased
their security.
"This decision was not a surprise to us, but all the mechanism of the
state will react," Bashir's foreign police adviser Mustafa Othman Ismail,
said. "We in the Cabinet will meet tomorrow [March 5] to see what steps are
to be taken."
In 2009, Egypt recruited an Arab and African coalition to oppose any ICC
arrest warrant for the 65-year-old Bashir. Diplomats said any attempt to
capture and prosecute Bashir, particularly if he visits Western nations,
could destabilize Africa.
"As soon as Mr. Al Bashir travels in international airspace, his plane
could be intercepted and he could be arrested," Prosecutor Luis Moreno
Ocampo said. "That is what I expect."
Hours after the ICC announcement, the Khartoum regime began organizing
protests, including plans for a "million-man march" in the Sudanese capital
on March 5. Western
diplomats and relief personnel were ordered to stay home to avoid becoming
targets of attack.
"The government of the Sudan is obliged under international law to
execute the warrant of arrest on its territory," Moreno-Ocampo said.
The British-based aid agency Oxfam said Khartoum has revoked the
agency's licence to operate in northern Sudan. Oxfam, with 450 staffers in
the country, has been operating in northern Sudan since 1983.
"Oxfam does not have an opinion on the court's [ICC] activities, and our
sole focus is meeting humanitarian and development needs in Sudan," Oxfam
said on March 4.
