Defiant ICC indictee Omar Hassan al-Bashir flies to China

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrives in Khartoum from Johannesburg on June 15, 2015 after a court ordered him not to leave South Africa. He on August 31, 2015 flew to China in defiance of an ICC warrant of arrest against him. PHOTO | EBRAHIM HAMID | AFP.

ICC indictee and Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir on Monday embarked on a state visit, defying calls by international human rights organisations on China to arrest him.

"The President has already left Sudan heading to China today", announced Sudanese Foreign Affairs ministry spokesman Ali Alsadig.

China is not a party to the Rome statute that established the International Criminal Court, but it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council that referred the situation in Sudan's Darfur region to the court in 2005.

Mr Bashir will attend the Chinese parade commemorating of the end of World War II.

"President Bashir will attend the ceremony of the parade commemoration of the end of World War II in Beijing scheduled for September 3," said Sudan's ambassador to China Omer Issa.

"We have prepared to receive the president on the scheduled time," he added.

WHISKED AWAY

The ambassador further said that the President is also invited to attend the second forum of the Sudanese-Chinese businessmen during his three-day visit.

President Bashir’s trips abroad have become controversial because of the efforts by the ICC to arrest him after he was indicted for crimes in Darfur in 2009.

His visit to South Africa last June for an AU summit turned dramatic when a South African court ordered his arrest.

But the authorities shielded him and quickly whisked him away.

His last visit to China in 2011 was also dramatic when his plane skirted the airspace of Turkmenistan.

However, the defiant president has made many travels abroad, going to Mauritania, Egypt and Saudi Arabia last July.