Sudan Arrests Militia Chief Facing Trial - NYTimes.com

Sudan Arrests Militia Chief Facing Trial - NYTimes.com: "Sudan Arrests Militia Chief Facing Trial
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — The Sudanese government has arrested one of the most wanted men in the country, a notorious janjaweed militia leader charged by an international court with orchestrating mass murder in Darfur, Sudanese officials disclosed on Monday.

The move is widely being interpreted as a way for Sudan to improve its image abroad and try to head off the possible genocide prosecution of the country’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in the International Criminal Court.

Human rights groups have said the militia leader, Ali Kushayb— also known as Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman and the “colonel of colonels” — led attacks on civilians and ordered villages to be burned to the ground and the women in them raped.

In 2007, the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity and demanded that Sudan hand him over. Sudan refused, denying that he had done anything wrong and insisting that any criminals it did arrest would be handled in its own courts.

But with Sudan under increasing pressure to curb the violence in Darfur and Mr. Bashir being pursued by international prosecutors, the government appears to have changed its tack. Mr. Kushayb is now in police c"