The International Criminal Court's prosecutor’s office has not applied for a single arrest warrant over crimes committed in Sudan's Darfur region since the country's devastating war began in April 2023, despite more than three years of investigation and repeated public assurances that charges were imminent, Middle East Eye can reveal.
According to numerous sources and court documents, the office of the prosecutor (OTP) has decided not to proceed with an application for an arrest warrant against a member of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which Prosecutor Karim Khan told judges in January last year he intended to file imminently. The application concerned alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in West Darfur since April 2023.
Briefing the UN Security Council on 27 January 2025, Khan said his office was taking the necessary steps to put forward applications for arrest warrants in relation to crimes in West Darfur, singling out gender-based crimes against women and girls as a priority.
For more than a year after Khan's leave of absence in May 2025, the prosecution did not provide any explanation to the pretrial chamber regarding the late application.
Last month, the three-judge panel which sits in the pretrial chamber criticised the OTP and ordered it to explain the reason for the delay and to provide a timeline for filing the application.
