Bashir denies rape allegations

2008-10-10 08:30

London - Allegations of mass rape in Darfur are fabricated and the province is mostly safe, Sudan's president said in a British television interview broadcast on Thursday.

Omar al-Bashir denied allegations that militias backed by his government engaged in a campaign of rape and murder in Darfur, telling Channel 4 News that rape was alien to the area's culture.

"It's not in the culture of the Darfurians. The Darfurian society does not have rape. It's not in the tradition," he said through a translator. He said that women making the rape allegations "are under the influence of the rebels and some are even relatives of the rebels. That's why they make these claims".

The war in Darfur began in 2003 as a crackdown on anti-government rebels who complained their arid region was neglected by Khartoum. The UN estimates 300 000 people have died, directly from attacks or indirectly through starvation.

In July, al-Bashir was indicted by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court on charges of genocide in Darfur. The world court's prosecutor accuses Sudan's forces and their militia proxies of deliberately targeting civilians by destroying villages and raping women.

Al-Bashir dismissed the allegations, saying Darfur was mostly safe and that he was "fully convinced that no rape took place".

"It might have happened at an individual level, but this is a normal crime that can happen in any country in the world," he said. "Mass rape does not exist."

- AP