Ali Kushayb
| Ali Kushayb | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 1957 (age 59–60) Sudan |
| Allegiance |
 Sudan
|
| Service/branch |
Janjaweed Popular Defence Force (2003-2004) |
| Battles/wars | War in Darfur |
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, commonly known as Ali Kushayb, is a senior Janjaweed commander supporting the Sudanese government against Darfur rebel groups, and currently is sought under an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. He was known as aqid al oqada ("colonel of colonels") and was active in Wadi Salih, West Darfur. On February 27, 2007, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo charged Kushayb with crimes against civilians in Darfur during 2003 and 2004, accusing him of ordering killings, rapes, and looting. An ICC arrest warrant was issued for him and Ahmed Haroun, his co-defendant, on April 27, 2007. In April 2008, he was released from Sudanese custody. According to news reports in October 2008 the Sudanese authorities re-arrested Kushayb. However, it is not known where Mr. Kushayb is being kept nor whether he will be turned over to the International Court.
Ali Kushayb's father was a member of the Ta’isha tribe while his mother was from the Dangaoni tribe from the southern part of Sudan.
Ali Kushayb was an aqid al-ogada, a colonel of colonels, for the Wadi Salih area in Darfur. He was one of the senior leaders of the tribal hierarchy in the Wadi Salih locality, and was a member of the Popular Defense Force (PDF), as well as a commander of a government backed militia in Darfur from August 2003 until March 2004. He served as a liaison between the government and the Janjaweed, while simultaneously participating in attacks against targeted groups.
The ICC charged Kushayb with 504 assassinations, 20 rapes, and the forced displacement of 41,000 people. In one of the various attacks by Ali Kushayb and the militia under his command, a survivor reported that 150 people were murdered, in which 30 children were killed, all in 90 minutes. Similarly, a woman who survived the pillaging of her village, Galania, and arrived to a refugee camp in Chad, related how one day the Janjaweed militia arrived at her town to kill civilians. Her husband was the first to be killed, and while she tried to run away she was caught by militia soldiers, and, at the command of Kushayb, was forced at knifepoint to confess she was “tora-bora,” or a rebel. After she arrived in Chad, other victims told similar stories of the horrors they underwent by the militia under the command of Kushayb: sixteen women were murdered, from which six were elderly women, children were thrown into a fire, houses were burned, countless were tortured and wounded, a dozen others were killed.
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