African press review 25 June 2015

Will the Pretoria government face legal action from South African courts for allowing International Criminal Court suspect Omar al-Bashir to leave the country after the recent African Union summit? Why is a Spanish judge involved in the London arrest of a Rwandan military official? 

A court in South Africa yesterday asked the country's director of public prosecutions to consider charging the government over its decision to let Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir leave South Africa.

Bashir flew out of Johannesburg on 15 June despite a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court. The Sudanese leader is charged with masterminding genocide and other atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

Bashir’s plane was allowed to take off even though the High Court in Pretoria had issued an order banning him from leaving until the end of a hearing on his case.

According to financial paper BusinessDay, High Court Judge Dustan Mlambo said yesterday that a democratic state based on the rule of law cannot function if the government ignores its constitutional obligations and fails to abide by court orders.

He called on the director of public prosecutions to consider criminal proceedings.

The government is due to explain the circumstances of Bashir's departure later today.

Nigeria’s new president has vowed to recover billions of dollars allegedly stolen by officials. Muhammadu Buhari has also promised to restore financial "sanity", accusing previous governments in Africa’s biggest economy of throwing the rulebooks "to the dogs".

Buhari’s strong words came after a meeting with the governors of Nigeria’s states, in which they said they were 658 billion naira (nearly three billion euros) in debt and needed federal government support to offset a funding crisis.

The governors have suggested three solutions: the government could refund money spent on federal infrastructure projects, banks could extend existing loans to up to 20 years or the government could share out oil revenues usually saved in the so-called Excess Crude Account.

The president, who took office last month after defeating Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria’s first transfer of power through the ballot box, vowed to recover billions allegedly stolen by public officials.

Police in Uganda yesterday barred former prime minister Amama Mbabazi from holding meetings to promote his challenge to President Yoweri Museveni in next year's elections.

Museveni sacked Mbabazi as prime minister last September. Commentators say that decision revealed a deepening power struggle between the two men.

The police have refused Mbabazi's request to hold public meetings on the grounds that he has not been endorsed as a candidate by the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party, which is run by the president.

Mbabazi recently notified the police that he would conduct countrywide meetings in July and August to promote his bid to win nomination as the presidential candidate of the NRM. The party will choose its candidate in September.

The main story in regional paper The East African says last Saturday's arrest of the head of Rwanda’s National Intelligence and Security Services has rekindled interest in a series of indictments issued by a Spanish judge against 40 senior members of the Rwandan military.

Lieutenant General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake was arrested last Saturday at Heathrow airport in London as he prepared to leave UK after an official mission, on what the UK government said were "valid" European arrest warrants issued by Spain.

He is expected to be arraigned in court later today.

Rwanda has consistently dismissed the indictments, issued in 2008 by Spanish Judge Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles, describing them as "politically motivated".

Merelles indicted the 40 officials for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism that resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, including eight Spaniards, as Tutsis reestablished control in the wake of the 1994 genocide. The Rwandan government denies the accusations.

According to the front page of the Kenyan Standard, the European Union has said it will offer counter-terrorism training to help east African security agencies improve cross-border investigations and prosecutions in a region hit by deadly raids by armed Islamists.

The new programme, to be implemented later this year or early 2016 across Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen, will cost 11 million euros over five years, an EU official said yesterday.