Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, the man the International Criminal Court tried under the name Ali Kushayb, is the first person convicted by that court for crimes committed in Darfur. On October 6, 2025, the three judges of Trial Chamber I unanimously found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt on 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed in the West Darfur towns of Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Deleig and the areas around them between August 2003 and March 2004. The judges found that he had led the Janjaweed militia in the Wadi Salih and Mukjar localities, that he had acted in concert with the forces of the Government of Sudan, and that he had not only given orders but had personally committed some of the crimes himself.
On December 9, 2025, the same chamber sentenced him to a joint term of 20 years of imprisonment, with the time he had spent in custody since June 9, 2020, deducted. He was 76 years old. The verdict was the first in the Darfur situation, the first conviction in any situation that the United Nations Security Council has referred to the court, and the first conviction at the court for persecution on gender grounds. He had denied every charge, and he had insisted from his first appearance that he was not the man known as Ali Kushayb. Both sides appealed. As of September 2026 the Appeals Chamber had not ruled, and the case had entered a separate phase on reparations for the victims.
The war in Darfur began in 2003, when rebel movements drawn mainly from the region's non-Arab communities took up arms against the government in Khartoum, accusing it of marginalizing the west of the country. The government, then led by President Omar al-Bashir, answered the rebellion in large part through the Janjaweed, militias recruited mainly from Arab nomadic groups and armed and supported by the state's security forces. The campaign against the rebellion fell most heavily on Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa civilians. The United Nations has estimated that about 300,000 people died in the conflict and that about 2.5 million were displaced.
The trial chamber placed Abd-Al-Rahman inside that structure. It found that the crimes in his case were committed during a widespread and systematic attack by the Janjaweed and Government of Sudan forces against the civilian population of West Darfur, and it described the operations as the carrying out of a state-led plan, which the judges called an Emergency Plan and treated as the blueprint for the crimes. They found that he held a leadership role in the Janjaweed, that he had good relations with local authorities and with the government, and that he received material support and money from Ahmad Muhammad Harun, a government minister at the time. Harun is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant of his own and remains at large.
Little about Abd-Al-Rahman's earlier life is settled. He had served in the Central Reserve Police, an Interior Ministry force, and he later lived in Rahad El Berdi, a town in South Darfur.
The first group of charges concerned operations against Kodoom and Bindisi and the surrounding areas on August 15 and 16, 2003. The trial chamber found that Abd-Al-Rahman ordered and incited the Janjaweed who took part. It found that no fewer than 46 civilians were killed in those operations.
For Kodoom and Bindisi, the chamber convicted him on eleven counts: intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population, as a war crime; murder, as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; pillaging, as a war crime; destruction of an adversary's property, as a war crime; other inhumane acts, as a crime against humanity; outrages upon personal dignity, as a war crime; rape, as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; forcible transfer of population, as a crime against humanity; and persecution on political and ethnic grounds, as a crime against humanity. His responsibility on these counts rested on ordering and inciting, not on his own hand. The persecution there, the judges found, was directed at the Fur.
The second and third groups of charges concerned operations six months later, in the towns of Mukjar and Deleig. The Mukjar operation ran from late February to early March 2004; the Deleig operation ran from March 5 to 7, 2004. Men from the two towns were held as captives and detainees, and the trial chamber found that at least 200 captives and detainees were victims of murder, attempted murder and torture in the two operations. The judges found that Abd-Al-Rahman acted jointly with the Janjaweed and with Government of Sudan forces, and that he was personally present.
For each of the two towns the chamber entered eight convictions: torture, as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; outrages upon personal dignity, as a war crime; murder, as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; attempted murder, as a crime against humanity and as a war crime; and persecution on political, ethnic and gender grounds, as a crime against humanity. On some of these counts he was convicted as a co-perpetrator and on others as a direct perpetrator: the chamber found that he personally committed murder and torture, outrages upon personal dignity and persecution. The judges found that men of the Fur community had been targeted on political, ethnic and gender grounds, and with that gender element the persecution counts became the first conviction for gender-based persecution in the history of the court.
Four counts relating to Mukjar and Deleig ended without a verdict: other inhumane acts, as a crime against humanity, and cruel treatment, as a war crime, in each town. The judges did not acquit him on them. They declined to enter convictions because the conduct behind those counts was already covered by counts on which he had been convicted, and the court's law bars cumulative convictions for the same conduct.
The United Nations Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in March 2005, under Resolution 1593, the first referral of its kind. The prosecutor opened an investigation on June 6, 2005, into crimes alleged in Darfur since July 1, 2002.
On April 27, 2007, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a warrant for the arrest of Abd-Al-Rahman. It was issued alongside a warrant for Harun, and the two men were at first treated as one case. Sudan did not surrender either of them. Warrants for President al-Bashir followed in 2009 and 2010, and the court also sought the former defense minister Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein and the rebel commander Abdallah Banda.
A second warrant against Abd-Al-Rahman was issued in 2018. It added three charges relating to Deleig in March 2004, and Pre-Trial Chamber II made it public on June 11, 2020, after he was in custody. Because Harun had still not been surrendered, Abd-Al-Rahman's case was severed from his and went forward alone.
President al-Bashir was removed from power in 2019. In early 2020 Sudan's new transitional government said that it would cooperate with the court. In February 2020 Abd-Al-Rahman left Rahad El Berdi and crossed into the Central African Republic. He surrendered voluntarily to the authorities there and was transferred to the custody of the court on June 9, 2020. He later told the court that he had handed himself in because he was desperate and feared for his life in Sudan.
He made his first appearance before Pre-Trial Chamber II on June 15, 2020, by video link. His first statement on the record went to the issue that would run through the whole case: he told the court that his name was not Kushayb. The pre-trial chamber refused his request for interim release in 2020, and the refusal was upheld in 2021.
The confirmation hearing, at which the pre-trial judges decide whether the prosecution's evidence is strong enough to send a case to trial, was held from May 24 to 26, 2021. The prosecution alleged that Abd-Al-Rahman had been a principal leader of the Janjaweed in Wadi Salih, that he had commanded thousands of fighters there, and that he had received money and material support from Harun for distribution to the militia. The defense answer, then and throughout the case, was mistaken identity: it doubted that a man called Ali Kushayb had ever existed and argued that, if he had, he was not the accused.
On July 9, 2021, Pre-Trial Chamber II confirmed all 31 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity and committed him to trial. The charges covered murder, attempted murder, attacks against the civilian population, rape, torture, pillaging, destruction of property, forcible transfer, persecution, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment and other inhumane acts in and around Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar and Deleig.
The trial opened before Trial Chamber I in The Hague on April 5, 2022. It was the first trial of a Sudanese national at the court. Abd-Al-Rahman pleaded not guilty to all 31 charges. The bench was made up of three judges, one of them presiding.
The prosecution called 56 witnesses. The victims who testified were mainly Fur. On identity, the prosecution relied on 16 witnesses who recognized the accused by his name and by the name Kushayb, together with recorded material and corroborating reports. Expert witnesses gave evidence about Darfur.
Victims took part in the trial in their own right. The chamber authorized 1,591 victims to participate in the proceedings through their legal representatives. The victims' representatives made their opening statement on June 5, 2023, and the chamber allowed them to call one witness and to present the evidence of participating victims in sessions in June and October 2023.
The defense opened its case in October 2023 and called 18 witnesses. Its central argument did not change from the confirmation hearing: that the accused was not Ali Kushayb, and that he had been a person of no standing who had played no part in the conflict. He also denied having held any senior position in the Janjaweed. Closing statements were heard from December 11 to 13, 2024, and the judges withdrew to deliberate.
The chamber delivered its judgment on October 6, 2025, in a written decision of about 355 pages. The three judges were unanimous. They first dealt with identity, the defense's main ground, and rejected it: they found that they were satisfied that the accused was the person known as Ali Kushayb, and they did not accept the evidence of the defense witnesses who had said otherwise.
They then entered convictions on 27 of the 31 counts, under three modes of liability. For Kodoom and Bindisi he was convicted of ordering the crimes. For Mukjar and Deleig he was convicted as a co-perpetrator, acting jointly with the Janjaweed and Government of Sudan forces, and, for part of the conduct, as a direct perpetrator. The judges found that the crimes formed part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, the element that made them crimes against humanity, and that they were committed in the context of an armed conflict, the element that made them war crimes.
The verdict was the court's first in the Darfur situation, twenty years after the Security Council referral.
The chamber invited the parties to submit evidence on sentence and heard them in the week of November 17, 2025. The prosecution asked for a sentence of life imprisonment, which the court has never imposed. The defense asked for a term of no more than seven years, which, with the time he had already served, would have meant release within months.
On December 9, 2025, the presiding judge read the sentence in open court. The chamber fixed a separate sentence for each count, ranging from eight to 20 years, and then imposed a joint sentence of 20 years of imprisonment, the period of his detention since June 9, 2020, to be deducted. In mitigation the chamber took account of his voluntary surrender, his age and his good conduct in detention, and it stated that without those factors it would have imposed a longer term. It gave retribution and deterrence as the purposes of the sentence, and it found deterrence of particular weight in light of the present state of Sudan. He stood to hear the sentence and showed no visible reaction.
On the same day the chamber issued an order for submissions on reparations, opening the next phase of the case.
The defense filed its notice of appeal against the judgment on November 6, 2025, within the 30 days the court allows. Against the sentence, the defense filed its notice of appeal on January 8, 2026, and the prosecution filed its own the following day. The prosecution had sought life imprisonment at trial, and its appeal put the length of the sentence back before the court. The defense, which had maintained his innocence throughout, appealed both the judgment and the sentence. All three appeals went to the five-judge Appeals Chamber, which is to rule on them in due course.
The reparations phase ran alongside the appeals. On September 8, 2026, Trial Chamber I held a public hearing in The Hague on the scope of the reparations it should order. It heard the victims' legal representatives, the prosecution, the defense, the Trust Fund for Victims, the Registry and organizations admitted as friends of the court.
Consultations with victims had drawn more than 1,100 responses. The victims' common legal representative supported a proposal that the Fur community as a whole be recognized as victims of the crimes, which would allow collective reparations to reach people without individual verification, and she proposed that any individual measures include symbolic compensation. Other proposals put to the chamber included support for return and resettlement, income-generating projects, medical assistance, support for vulnerable groups, education, and the mapping of villages as they stood before the attacks. Seven of the participating victims had died while the case was under way. The chamber reserved its decision.
The case reached the International Criminal Court through the Security Council, and Resolution 1593 of 2005 was the first referral of its kind; Abd-Al-Rahman's conviction is the first in any Council-referred situation. The court does not try defendants in their absence, so no other Darfur case can go to trial until another suspect is in custody. At the time of the verdict he was the only person held by the court in the Darfur situation, while the warrants for al-Bashir, who faces three counts of genocide as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes, and for Harun, Hussein and Banda remained outstanding.
The two categories in his conviction rest on separate findings. For the crimes against humanity, the trial chamber found that the Janjaweed and Government of Sudan forces had carried out a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of West Darfur. The same conduct was charged and proved as war crimes, which is why murder, rape, torture and attempted murder each appear twice in his convictions, once under each heading. Where one count added nothing to another for the same conduct, as with the four Mukjar and Deleig counts, the bar on cumulative convictions left those counts without a verdict.
The chamber could impose a term of up to 30 years of imprisonment or, in exceptional circumstances, life. In fixing the sentence the judges weigh the gravity of the crimes and the convicted person's individual circumstances under rules 145 to 148 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. Cooperation, including voluntary surrender, can mitigate a sentence; crimes against particularly defenseless victims, among them incapacitated people and children, can aggravate it. Both parties may appeal a judgment within 30 days of notification, and may separately appeal the sentence and any reparations order, to an Appeals Chamber of five judges.
A convicted person is personally liable for any reparations award. The court may order a fine and the forfeiture of proceeds, property and assets, to be transferred to the Trust Fund for Victims, and where the convicted person's assets fall short, the Trust Fund may use voluntary contributions to complement the award. Reparations may be individual or collective.
Identity was the issue the defense contested from the first hearing to the last. The trial chamber found beyond reasonable doubt that Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman is the man known as Ali Kushayb. That finding stands as the court's finding unless the Appeals Chamber disturbs it.
The prosecution charged 31 counts and the chamber convicted on 27. The four remaining counts were neither proven nor disproven at trial; the judges entered no verdict on them because the conduct was covered by other convictions. The totals of people killed across the four operations are not a single figure in the judgment as it has been made public: the chamber's findings speak of no fewer than 46 civilians killed in Kodoom and Bindisi and of at least 200 captives and detainees who were victims of murder, attempted murder and torture in Mukjar and Deleig.
The scope of his official position before the war, including his service in the Central Reserve Police and any rank he held, is not fully established; at trial he denied having held any senior position in the Janjaweed.
August 15-16, 2003: Operations against Kodoom and Bindisi, West Darfur.
Late February to early March 2004: Mukjar operation.
March 5-7, 2004: Deleig operation.
March 2005: The UN Security Council refers the situation in Darfur to the ICC under Resolution 1593.
June 6, 2005: The ICC prosecutor opens an investigation.
April 27, 2007: Pre-Trial Chamber I issues the first warrant for his arrest.
2018: A second warrant is issued, adding three Deleig charges.
February 2020: He leaves Rahad El Berdi and crosses into the Central African Republic.
June 9, 2020: He is transferred to ICC custody after surrendering voluntarily.
June 11, 2020: The second warrant is made public.
June 15, 2020: First appearance before Pre-Trial Chamber II.
May 24-26, 2021: Confirmation of charges hearing.
July 9, 2021: All 31 charges confirmed.
April 5, 2022: Trial opens before Trial Chamber I; he pleads not guilty.
June 5, 2023: Victims' opening statement.
October 2023: Defense case opens.
December 11-13, 2024: Closing statements.
October 6, 2025: Convicted on 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
November 6, 2025: Defense notice of appeal against the judgment.
November 17-21, 2025: Sentencing hearing.
December 9, 2025: Joint sentence of 20 years; order for submissions on reparations.
January 8-9, 2026: Defense and prosecution notices of appeal against the sentence.
September 8, 2026: Public hearing on reparations.