The International Criminal Court will hold a public hearing on the current July 21 to consider a request submitted by the Office of the Prosecutor to withdraw the charges against Sudanese citizen Abdullah Banda Abakar Nourein, one of the accused of committing war crimes in the Darfur region, in a step that could end one of the oldest cases before the Court.

The Court said in a statement published on its website that Trial Chamber IV will hold the session at 2:30 p.m. The Hague time to hear observations from the prosecution, defense, and participants regarding the request to withdraw the charges, and the session will be broadcast on the Court's website.

The case concerns the attack that occurred on September 29, 2007, on the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) peacekeeping force site in the town of Haskanita in North Darfur state, which resulted in the killing of 12 force members and serious injury to eight others. Banda had voluntarily appeared before the Court in June 2010, before Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed the charges against him on March 7, 2011, and referred him to trial. He then absented himself from court sessions, so Trial Chamber IV issued an arrest warrant against him on September 11, 2014, and the case remained pending due to his non-appearance before the Court, which does not conduct trials in absentia.

Prosecution requests dropping charges

The Office of the Prosecutor announced on Tuesday that it had requested permission to withdraw three charges of war crimes against Abdullah Banda, and that it had concluded that the evidence no longer provided 'substantial grounds' to believe in his criminal responsibility for the crimes attributed to him. The Office of the Prosecutor said it had submitted the request to withdraw the charges on October 5, 2023, and it remained confidential pursuant to Chamber orders, before the documents were declassified and announced this week.

He attributed his decision to the significant deterioration of evidence over time, the exhaustion of all investigative leads, the inability to reach a number of witnesses or their refusal to cooperate, along with credibility issues concerning some key witnesses, and the emergence of new evidence that benefits the accused. He added: 'More than a decade having passed since the confirmation of charges, and the investigations having reached their final stages, make it unlikely that any additional inquiries would change this assessment.'

The Office of the Prosecutor attributed its decision to what it called an 'objective assessment of evidence' and a commitment not to proceed to trial unless sufficient evidence exists, noting that withdrawing the charges – if approved by the Court – would end Banda's case, without preventing the prosecution from recharging in the future if new evidence emerges.

Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Khan said her office is aware of the decision's impact on victims who have waited for justice for years, but it is committed to ensuring that no case is referred to trial unless based on sufficient evidence.

Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Nazhat Khan (AFP)

She continued: 'The request to withdraw charges concerns Banda alone and does not affect other cases related to Darfur crimes or the investigations being conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor regarding crimes committed during the current war in Sudan.'

The request to withdraw charges comes as Banda remains present on the military scene in Sudan. After the outbreak of war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces on April 15, 2023, he joined the joint force of armed movements that signed the Juba Agreement, currently allied with the army. The Sudan Tribune newspaper reported that he arrived in El Fasher in November 2023 at the head of a military force, announced his joining the fight alongside the army, and later participated in military operations conducted by the joint force in the Darfur region. According to the newspaper, Banda sustained severe injuries during an attack by the Rapid Support Forces on the Malha area in North Darfur in March 2025, was transferred to Egypt for treatment, and then returned to Omdurman.

The request to withdraw charges comes amid the complexities faced by one of the oldest International Criminal Court files on Darfur, as the Office of the Prosecutor continues its investigations into crimes committed in the Darfur region since the outbreak of war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces.

The UN Security Council referred the Darfur case to the International Criminal Court in 2005 under Resolution 1593, making it the first case referred to the Court by a Council resolution. Accordingly, the Court issued arrest warrants against several Sudanese officials, including former President Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, against whom two arrest warrants were issued: the first on March 4, 2009, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the second on July 12, 2010, for genocide. The Court also issued arrest warrants against then-State Minister of Interior Ahmed Mohamed Haroun in April 2007, former Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein on March 1, 2012, in addition to Abdullah Banda.

Throughout its rule, President Omar al-Bashir's government refused to recognize the Court's jurisdiction or surrender any of the wanted persons, despite repeated demands from the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court.

After the fall of al-Bashir's regime on April 11, 2019, the transitional government announced its readiness to cooperate with the Court, and the Juba Peace Agreement signed in October 2020 stipulated cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The Council of Ministers also approved in August 2021 a draft law to join the Rome Statute, and officials declared their commitment to surrender the wanted persons, but those pledges were not implemented until the coup of October 25, 2021.

Ali Kushayb during the sentencing hearing where he was convicted of war crimes in Darfur December 9 (AFP)

The fate of executing the arrest warrants issued against those wanted by the International Criminal Court remains pending, and the authorities conceal their whereabouts, noting that al-Bashir resides somewhere in the north of the country.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, known as 'Ali Kushayb', is the first and last defendant in the Darfur case to appear before the International Criminal Court. He surrendered himself to the Court in June 2020, and Trial Chamber I convicted him on October 6, 2025, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, and sentenced him on December 9, 2025, to twenty years in prison.

Kushayb's conviction is the first conviction issued by the Court in Darfur cases since the file was referred to it more than twenty years ago, and the sentence against him remains appealable. As for Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, who served as Minister of Health after signing a peace agreement with al-Bashir's government, he voluntarily appeared before the Court in 2009 in the same case concerning the Haskanita attack, and the Pre-Trial Chamber declined to confirm the charges against him, ending the judicial proceedings against him without referring him to trial.