Sudan's Bashir defies court with Chad trip

By Moumine Ngarmbassa

N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir arrived in Chad on Wednesday, his first visit to a full member state of the International Criminal Court, which is demanding his arrest for genocide.

The ICC said that as a member state Chad was obliged to arrest Bashir, but Chad said after Bashir's arrival it was under no obligation to do so and Bashir would return home safely after attending a summit it was hosting.

Bashir was indicted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur last year. This month the court added genocide to the charges, accusing him of presiding over rape, torture and murder in the remote west of Sudan.

Bashir was greeted by Chadian President Idriss Deby on his first trip abroad since the genocide warrant.

"We are not obliged to arrest Omar Hassan al-Bashir," Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, Chad's interior and security minister, told Reuters. "Bashir is a sitting president. I have never seen a sitting president arrested on his travels by the host country."

"(Bashir) came for the (Sahel-Saharan states summit) and he will return home safe and sound," the Chadian minister added.

Since his initial indictment, Bashir has made several trips abroad in defiance of the court. But this was the first to a member of the ICC, which said Chad was obliged to arrest him.

"The main element concerning Chad and all other member states is to implement judges' decisions and cooperate with a request for arrest," ICC representative Fadi El Abdallah said in The Hague as Bashir touched down in N'Djamena.