The International Criminal Court will hold a public hearing on July 21 to consider a request submitted by the Office of the Prosecutor to withdraw charges against Sudanese citizen Abdullah Banda Abaker Nourain, one of those 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 posted 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 relates to the attack that occurred on September 29, 2007, on the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) peacekeeping force site in the town of Haskanita, North Darfur state, which resulted in the deaths of 12 peacekeepers and serious injuries 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 committed him to trial. He then absented himself from Court sessions, so Trial Chamber IV issued an arrest warrant against him on September 11, 2014. The case remained pending because he did not appear before the Court, which does not conduct trials in absentia.

The prosecution requests dropping the charges

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

It attributed its 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 problems regarding the credibility of some key witnesses, and the emergence of new evidence in favor of the accused. It added: 'More than a decade after the confirmation of charges, and with the investigations reaching their final stages, it is unlikely that any further inquiries would change this assessment.'

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

Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Khan said that her office is aware of the impact of the decision on victims who have waited for justice for years, but it is committed to ensuring that no case is referred to trial unless it is 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 into crimes committed during the current war in Sudan.'

The request to withdraw charges comes while Banda remains active 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 the city of El Fasher in November 2023 at the head of a military force and announced his joining the fighting alongside the army, before later participating in military operations carried out 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 Al-Malaha area in North Darfur in March 2025, and was transferred to Egypt for treatment, then returned to Omdurman.

The request to withdraw charges comes amid the complexities faced by one of the oldest ICC cases concerning Darfur, at a time when 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 Council decision. Accordingly, the Court issued arrest warrants against several Sudanese officials, including former President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who was subject to two arrest warrants: 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, and former Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein on March 1, 2012, in addition to Abdullah Banda.

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

After the fall of the Bashir regime on April 11, 2019, the transitional government declared its willingness to cooperate with the Court. The Juba Peace Agreement signed in October 2020 stipulated cooperation with the ICC. The Council of Ministers in August 2021 approved a draft law to accede to the Rome Statute, and officials announced their commitment to surrender the wanted individuals, 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 on December 9 (AFP)

The fate of executing the arrest warrants issued by the ICC against the wanted individuals 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 ICC. 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 20 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 remains subject to appeal. As for Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, who served as Minister of Health after signing a peace agreement with the Bashir government, he voluntarily appeared before the Court in 2009 in the same case concerning the Haskanita attack. Pre-Trial Chamber I declined to confirm the charges against him, thus ending the judicial proceedings against him without referral to trial.