Coalition accuses Mahama of frustrating AU's effort to pull out of ICC

The Coalition of Pan-African Organisations is accusing President John Dramani Mahama of frustrating efforts of African leaders to pull

out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as legal luminaries prepare to deliberate on the international court’s alleged bias against Africans.

The group says its findings from the African Union Commission at the AU shows that Ghana’s President is among a clique of African presidents who are opposed to proposals for Africa to have its own court to deal with leaders who commit crimes against humanity.

The African Union raised concerns over unfair treatment and witch-hunting targeted at leaders on the continent at the expense of their Western colleagues found guilty of similar crimes.

The coalition has, therefore, taken a swipe at ICC, stating that the international body is a threat to Africa.

Addressing a press conference in Accra, spokesperson for CPA, Ayure Kapini stressed that it was sad to see the ICC choose a path that has, and continues to, robbed Africans of their fundamental human rights and freedoms.

That development, according to him, has encouraged impunity based on political leanings of the perpetrator in several African countries.

“ICC has invaded and hijacked the internal workings of some judicial authorities in African countries,” Ayure Kapini averred.

Ayure Kapini also pointed out that loads of evidence of ICC’s selective retributive justice and discrimination against Africans abound.

Buttressing this claim, he cited a July 2008 incident where the then Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Gabriel Moreno-Ocampo, told the international press in an interview that he had asked Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to refer their cases to the ICC.

“At that same material time, there was an avalanche of complaints against some Western personalities who were proven to have committed war crimes against humanity.

“We wonder why the ICC did not invite those countries through warrant for them to hand over their citizens involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity”, he said.

According to him, the “illegal invasion” of Iraq by the Westerners has, till date, not been investigated.