JAKARTA - A court in the military-controlled city of Port Sudan on Sunday sentenced paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and 15 others in absentia to death for the murder of a regional governor and war crimes in Darfur, according to a government media report.
The ruling, issued by a judicial institution that functions under the military, is the first against the leadership of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since the war broke out between the paramilitary group and the Sudanese army in April 2023.
The court found Daglo and the other defendants guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and attacks on civilians and public facilities, according to a report by state news agency SUNA, as reported by Al Arabiya from AFP (13/7).
Those sentenced included Dagalo's brother and deputy, Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo, as well as several RSF officers and tribal leaders from the Arab community in West Darfur.
The case centers on the killing of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abbakar in June 2023, shortly after RSF forces seized El-Geneina, the state capital.
Abbakar was killed hours after accusing the RSF and its allied militias of carrying out attacks on civilians.
UN experts determined that between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the Massalit ethnic group, were killed in El-Geneina during the violence.
RSF itself has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide and other war crimes.
The court said it would refer the case to the Supreme Court for review and seek the arrest and extradition of those convicted through Interpol and other international channels.
The leaders of the Sudanese army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Daglo jointly led the 2021 coup that thwarted Sudan's transition to civilian rule, before falling out over plans to integrate the RSF into the regular army, a dispute that eventually led to war.
The conflict between the army and the RSF, now in its fourth year, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 11 million, and triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's largest refugee and famine crisis.
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