ICC prosecutor likens Sudan elections to vote under Hitler, Bangladesh joins court

March 23, 2010 (WASHINGTON) — The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Tuesday today likened the April Sudanese elections scheduled for next month to "a Hitler election."

Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo (Reuters)

Ocampo made the remarks during a press conference in Brussels where he met with European Union (EU) officials.

"It’s like monitoring a Hitler election.... The EU’s observers on the ground are facing "a big challenge," Moreno-Ocampo told a press conference in Brussels" Ocampo said.

The ICC indicted Bashir last year on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but stopped short of including a charge of genocide. The United Nations says as many as 300,000 people have been killed since conflict erupted in Darfur in 2003, although Sudan rejects that figure.

Bashir is running for elections against 11 other candidates and observers say he is seeking to legitimize his rule in face of the warrant. His travel abroad has been curtailed over fears he may be arrested or have his plane intercepted.

Sudan is set to stage its first multi-party elections in 24 years from April 11 to 13 as part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended a decades-old civil war between north and south.

Ocampo said it was the duty of the Sudanese government in the first place to arrest Bashir.

An ICC appeals chamber last month ordered a review of Bashir’s arrest warrant for alleged atrocities in the war-torn western Sudanese province of Darfur.

It directed judges to reconsider their decision to omit genocide from the warrant issued in March last year, saying they had made "an error in law."

Separately, Bangladeshi news media reported that the cabinet ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC.

"The ratification will prove that Bangladesh is determined to follow international standards to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide" the Bangladeshi prime minister’s press secretary Abul Kalam Azad said.

The mostly Muslim Bangladesh signed the Rome Statute on July 17, 1998, the first country to do so in South Asia.

This makes Bangladesh the 111th country to join the tribunal with the most recent being Chile and Slovakia.

Sudan has been hoping that Arab, African and Muslim nations that are signatories of the Rome Statute would withdraw in retaliation to Bashir’