International Criminal Court prosecutors asked judges on Monday to impose a life sentence on a Sudanese militia leader convicted of atrocities during the Darfur conflict two decades ago.
They said Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kushayb, must face the harshest penalty for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in western Darfur between 2003 and 2004.
Prosecutor Julian Nicholls told the court that the evidence revealed “the stuff of nightmares”, describing Abd-Al-Rahman as an axe-wielding killer responsible for terrifying violence.
Judges previously found him guilty of murder, gang rape, torture and attacks on civilians carried out by Janjaweed fighters armed and supported by Sudan’s former government.
Abd-Al-Rahman denied being a Janjaweed commander, yet the court heard detailed accounts of him loading dozens of civilians onto trucks, beating some with axes, and later ordering troops to execute them.
Presiding judge Joanna Korner said he was personally involved in the assaults and present when detainees were killed under his command.
The defendant, thought to have been born in 1949, insisted he was misidentified and was not the notorious Kushayb, an argument firmly dismissed by the judges.
His defence team is seeking a seven-year sentence and will present its plea later this week, arguing that he turned himself in after fleeing to the Central African Republic in 2020 out of fear for his life.
The Darfur conflict erupted after non-Arab groups rose against Khartoum, prompting the government to mobilise Janjaweed militias accused of ethnically targeted violence.
The United Nations estimates 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced during the 2000s, leaving deep scars that continue to shape Sudan’s turmoil.
