Push for Sudan warrant gets a mixed response

The prosecutor said he had found no smoking gun, such as a master plan devised by Bashir, but he presented victims' testimony, government documents and other evidence as pieces of a puzzle that combined to form an image of criminality. "He used the whole state apparatus, he used the army, he enrolled the militia janjaweed. They all report to him, they all obey him. His control is absolute," Moreno-Ocampo said.

If the court's three judges agree that the evidence supports a credible case, a decision expected to take two to three months, they will issue a warrant for Bashir. Sudan is unlikely to hand over the president, but the warrant would mean that Bashir could be arrested by international authorities if he left the country.

In Sudan, U.N. agencies and peacekeepers were on alert and had evacuated about 250 nonessential personnel from the country over the last few days.

Andrew Natsios, the former U.S. envoy to Sudan who was one of the first to raise alarms about the attacks in Darfur, said an indictment of Bashir would make it much more difficult to negotiate a settlement with the Sudanese government.

"Who in the U.N. and European Community is going to talk with the Sudanese government now that the head of state has been indicted?" said Natsios, now a professor at Georgetown University. "I don't think the people in the advocacy groups or the [International Criminal Court] are thinking about the consequences of this. If they have a plan for saving the country from much more bloodshed, I haven't heard it."

One key question is whether the controversy will unify Sudan's ruling elite behind Bashir or create new fissures that could ultimately drive him from power. Hassan Turabi, one of Sudan's leading opposition figures, predicted that the country's ruling elite would voice strong public support for the president, but would eventually splinter.

"This will create a lot of trouble inside the inner circle," Turabi said. "In Sudan, leaders are supposed to rule through awe and terror and intimidation. This is destroying that image. Now people see him as vulnerable."

In an effort to avoid the same kind of military coup that brought Bashir to power in 1989, Turabi predicted that the president would attempt to soften his international image in the coming months, perhaps even pushing hard for a Darfur peace deal. At the same time, he said, the government would launch a legal and diplomatic offensive to lobby ICC judges and the U.N. Security Council against formally issuing the warrant.