The unanimous verdict of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the case of Ali Muhammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman, known across Darfur as “Ali Kushayb”, is historic in many respects. He is the first person to be tried and convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s western region. For the first time, the message that the heinous crimes committed against helpless civilians in Darfur will be punished is loud and clear.
“[It] is a crucial step towards closing the impunity gap in Darfur,” said Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan. “It sends a resounding message to perpetrators of atrocities in Sudan, both past and present, that justice will prevail, and that they will be held accountable for inflicting unspeakable suffering on Darfuri civilians, men, women and children.”
For the survivors of the brutality the 76-year-old former leader of the Janjaweed militia has been convicted of and for which they have waited two decades to see him in court, the judgment, pronounced on Monday, October 6, 2025, is the first proof that their suffering matters, that their pain means something.
“This trial has for the first time allowed them a voice with which to inform the world of what happened to them,” the judges wrote in their verdict, referring to the Fur civilians who testified about murders, rapes, torture, and mass executions that destroyed their communities in 2003 and 2004.
The judges found Abd-al-Rahman criminally responsible for murder, torture, rape, and outrages upon personal dignity – crimes that caused death, injury and destruction through scorched earth tactics including the burning and pillaging of entire villages, and mass executions. He is now waiting for sentencing in a separate hearing.
The judgment of The Hague-based court marks the first conviction in a situation referred to the ICC by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
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Abd-al-Rahman was initially charged with 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The court entered convictions on only 27 counts but found that the other four covered criminal conduct already addressed by the convictions.
The counts aren’t individual crimes but legal categories covering hundreds of victims: at least 196 killed across three operations, countless others raped, tortured, or forcibly displaced.
The charges span attacks on Kodoom and Bindisi villages in August 2003, and the detention, torture and mass execution of civilians in Mukjar and Deleig in March 2004.
In Kodoom and Bindisi, over 1,000 Janjaweed fighters swept through predominantly Fur villages with no rebel presence. Witnesses described systematic rape, with attackers working in coordinated groups. One young girl, only 15 years old at the time, beaten and raped multiple times, told the court she still suffers physical and psychological consequences.
In Mukjar and Deleig, men and boys – some as young as 13 – were separated from their families at checkpoints, detained in overcrowded cells without food or water, tortured, then driven to execution sites. “All the detainees were beaten, without exception,” the judgment states. Some had their ears cut off. One was burned with an iron.
At Khor Talaba, Abd-al-Rahman ordered detainees to lie down in a line, then commanded his forces to shoot them. The killing lasted 20 minutes. At Fere village, he supervised the loading of civilians onto trucks, counting bodies until each vehicle reached capacity. His order at one execution site: “Execute the instructions.”
Among the dead were three village chiefs, two boys no older than 13, community leaders, farmers, and one police coordinator whom Abd-al-Rahman personally struck in the head with his axe.
‘I would only waste one bullet’
The evidence that convicted Abd-al-Rahman came largely from his victims’ mouths. Witnesses who had been to his pharmacy in Garsila identified him as the man who later burned their villages. Friends and army colleagues testified that yes, “Ali Kushayb” was indeed Ali Muhammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman, despite his denials and claims of mistaken identity. The court agreed with them.
He maintained throughout the trial that he was merely a pharmacist, uninvolved in war crimes. But the court heard his voice in a video recorded before his surrender: “I’m Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman, and my nickname is Kushayb,” he said.
Witnesses described him introducing himself at Mukjar police station as “Ali Kushayb” and “the leader of the Janjaweed” before personally beating detainees with his trademark axe. They recounted his words when a subordinate questioned orders to kill civilians who had surrendered: “I can communicate directly with the minister. Who are you to tell me this? I would only waste one bullet to get rid of you.”
The court found he gave direct orders for the execution of at least 100 civilians in a single week in March 2004.
The verdict carries particular weight because the case stands alone. Though the ICC issued arrest warrants for other architects of the Darfur genocide, including former Sudanese president Omar al Bashir, who is currently held under military custody in the north, so far, it is only Abd-al-Rahman who has been tried. Bashir was moved from the notorious Kober Prison to a military hospital following attacks on the jail and concerns over his deteriorating health. Despite jailbreaks and chaos, Bashir remains tightly guarded, and efforts to extradite him to The Hague have not been successful. Abd-al-Rahman’s superior, Ahmed Harun, also remains beyond the court’s reach.
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Abd-al-Rahman surrendered himself to the ICC in June 2020, three years after the fall of Bashir’s regime and 13 years since the ICC first issued a warrant for his arrest. His trial opened on April 5, 2022, before Trial Chamber I, composed of Judge Joanna Korner (Presiding), Judge Reine Alapini-Gansou, and Judge Althea Violet Alexis-Windsor. They heard the closing statements in December 2024.
The trial became the sole opportunity for Darfur’s victims to confront in court the men who destroyed their lives. The prosecution presented testimony from 81 witnesses and 1,521 items of evidence, including documents from Sudan’s government and the United Nations, satellite images, photographs, videos, and social media posts.
Blueprint from the top
The judges determined that Abd-al-Rahman’s crimes weren’t rogue acts but part of a “widespread and systematic attack by the Janjaweed militia and Government of Sudan forces against the civilian population in West Darfur” between August 2003 and March 2004, during an armed conflict between Sudan’s government and rebel groups.
The attack flowed from a deliberate plan adopted by Sudan’s National Security Council in December 2003. The “Emergency Plan” identified the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit communities as supporting the rebellion and called for their subjugation through armed Arab militias – the Janjaweed – specifically because these irregular forces weren’t “constrained by military rules and regulations.”
One stated objective was to “assassinate sympathisers from among community leaders and local administration officials”.
Days before attacks on Fur villages, then-Interior Minister Ahmed Harun would arrive by helicopter and deliver inflammatory speeches. “Wipe out and sweep away the Fur, do not keep anyone alive,” he told crowds in Mukjar on August 9, 2003, with Abd-al-Rahman standing nearby. “The Fur and their money are war booty for the Janjaweed.”
The pattern of official visits, weapons distribution, and systematic attacks on civilian populations were repeated across western Darfur.
The verdict included what the ICC called “important convictions for gender-based crimes,” making it the first conviction for gender-based persecution at the court – a milestone in international criminal law.
Abd-al-Rahman was found guilty of rape as both a war crime and a crime against humanity, among other gender-based crimes. The judges ruled that the attacks resulted in the rape of women and girls, causing profound physical, cultural, and social harm to victims. The decision has emboldened the court’s determination to “… continue pursuing its policy commitment to effectively investigate and prosecute gender-based crimes.”
The gender-based persecution conviction also broke new legal ground in a different way: Abd-al-Rahman was convicted of the crime against humanity of persecuting males from the Fur tribe on political, ethnic, and gender grounds. This decision recognises the intersecting nature of multiple forms of discrimination, acknowledging that Fur males were specifically targeted based on their ethnicity, perceived political alignment, and gender.
The finding addresses a gap in international justice: that men and boys can be victims of gender-based persecution when they are systematically targeted because of their male identity, combined with other factors.
The trial gave civilian witnesses from the Fur community something they’d been denied for 20 years: a global platform to document what happened.
“Ninety per cent of the homes in Bindisi are constructed using local materials, flammable, so the entire town was on fire,” one witness testified. “Smoke was coming up everywhere; it’s beyond words to describe this. After the attack, it was a rabble of ashes. Corpses scattered everywhere.”
Another victim described being forced to watch women and girls raped in the open, children held at gunpoint to witness the assaults.
“The suffering they underwent at the time continues today,” the judges noted.
What comes next
Once a conviction has been confirmed and the appeal process concluded, the ICC can impose sentences ranging up to 30 years’ imprisonment, or in cases of extreme gravity, life imprisonment after the appeal processes are concluded.
As the next stage in the ICC process prepares to start, a broader question remains whether there will be more trials. After releasing the verdict on Monday, the court renewed its call for the arrest of the other individuals with outstanding warrants in Darfur: Bashir, Harun, and Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein. The charges against Harun are closely linked to those for which Abd-al-Rahman was convicted.
For now, this verdict stands as the only legal accountability for a conflict that killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced millions of others.
“The ICC’s long-awaited landmark conviction for serious crimes in Darfur provides the first opportunity for victims and communities terrorised by the Janjaweed to see a measure of justice before the court,” said Liz Evenson, the International Justice Director at Human Rights Watch. “With the current conflict in Sudan producing new generations of victims and compounding the suffering of those targeted in the past, the verdict should spur action by governments to advance justice by all possible means.”
The timing of the ICC verdict is particularly poignant: Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, with fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – a group with direct lineage to the Janjaweed – creating what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The ICC has insisted that the investigation in Darfur remains active. “The conflict in Darfur constitutes a threat to international peace and security,” the court stated. “Decades later, the renewed violence from 2023 and the generational suffering and trauma underline that without justice, there can be no lasting peace.”
“We are working to ensure that the trial of Mr Abd-Al-Rahman will be the first of a number in relation to the situation in Darfur at the International Criminal Court,” said Deputy Prosecutor Khan.
“The hundreds of thousands killed in Darfur will never see justice,” the judges acknowledged. But for the survivors who testified – and for communities that lost fathers, mothers, children and leaders – the verdict delivered something many victims feared would never come: proof that the world was watching, that their testimony mattered, and that at least one man responsible would be held to account.
