Khartoum (Alshahid) – The International Criminal Court has issued the second arrest warrant for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir for the crime of genocide

The first arrest warrant came in 2009, Mr. Bashir was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity and the genocide case was omitted because of insufficient evidence.

“The judges of the court think that there are reasonable grounds to believe that al-Bashir is responsible for three counts of genocide committed against the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups,” ICC spokesperson Sonja Robla said.

Now the ICC says it has “reasonable grounds” to believe he is responsible for genocide.

“This concrete case of al-Bashir now includes 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,” Robla said.

Mr. Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC and has denied the charges against him.