Sudan locks horns with Kenya over Bashir

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- Khartoum announced the Kenyan envoy was ordered out of the country after Nairobi said it would arrest Sudan's president if he was in the country.

The Sudan News Agency reported that Khartoum ordered Kenyan Ambassador Robert Mutua Ngesu to leave the country. SUNA reported the order was in response to a ruling by the Kenyan High Court that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was to be arrested if he arrived in the country.

"The courts have said that Kenya has an obligation to arrest Bashir if he is to come to country," George Kegoro, executive director of the International Commission of Jurists, was quoted by CNN as saying. "If there was doubt as to the legal position, that has been clarified."

Catherine Ashton, Europe's foreign policy chief, in October called on Malawi to arrest Bashir when he visited the country for a summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.

The International Criminal Court said it issued a letter to Malawi before Bashir's visit asking the country to cooperate, as a state party to the court, with his arrest for alleged crimes committed in Darfur.

The ICC in 2009 issued its first arrest warrant for Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes. A second 2010 warrant added three additional counts of genocide.

Kenya is party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC.