AP, Khartoum :
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Khartoum on Monday to cheers of supporters after leaving South Africa, where a court had ordered his arrest based on an international warrant for war crimes charges.
Al-Bashir raised a stick in the air as he stepped out of the plane, waving to a few hundred supporters who greeted him at the airport. Some chanted “God is Great” while others cried with joy.
A South African court ruled that al-Bashir, who was attending an African Union summit, should be arrested. The ruling came after al-Bashir left.
Al-Bashir, in office since a 1989 military coup, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes allegations linked to the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.
At the Khartoum airport, supporters of the president raised posters reading “Lion of Africa” scribbled next to a picture of al-Bashir in military uniform and carried a coffin with a white sheet wrapped around it reading: “The ICC to its last resting place.”
Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said: “The president will continue his participation (in international events) as usual and the attempts to distract us will not sway us.”
In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the International Criminal Court’s authority must be respected.
However, a Pretoria court’s ruling that al-Bashir should be arrested came after he had left the country and in defiance of an earlier court order that he should remain in the country while judges deliberated on the matter.
Judge Dunstan Mlambo criticized the South African government for failing to heed the instructions of the court.
