'Give us Bush for Beshir'
2008-07-15 17:23
Algiers - US President George W Bush should face justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) alongside Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, an Algerian newspaper published on Tuesday.
"Give us Bush, and we will deliver Beshir to you," read the headline of daily Algerie-News, which also said "international justice is led astray by the West".
"The International Criminal Court is charging the Sudanese president... But what is it doing about the other crimes committed in the world and those carried out by the American administration in Iraq," said the newspaper.
ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on Monday sought an arrest warrant against Beshir on 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur, torn apart by civil war since 2003.
Charging Beshir "corresponds very precisely to the political agenda of the Bush administration", said Algerie-News.
"It is really a right the strongest give themselves to intervene in the internal affairs of a country," Farouk Ksentini - president of a human rights commission in Algeria - said in an interview with the newspaper.
Other dailies in the country weighed in on the ICC's announcement with a similar tone.
"International justice is at the service of American calculations," said La Tribune.
Le Jour said Beshir can count on the support of his people: "The people of Sudan are in solidarity with their president."
- SAPA