The Gambia joins African queue to leave ICC

BBC.COM | Wednesday October 26, 2016 11:41

 

The small West African nation joins South Africa and Burundi in withdrawing from the court.

The ICC was set up to try the world's worst crimes but has been accused of unfairly targeting African leaders.

Gambian Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said the court had ignored Western war crimes.

He said the ICC, for example, had failed to indict former British Prime Minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.

Speaking on state television, he said the ICC was 'an International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans'.

The ICC's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is a former Gambian justice minister.

President Yahya Jammeh has ruled The Gambia since taking power in a coup in 1994.

Elections are due in December, but opposition leader Ousainou Darboe and 18 others were jailed for three years earlier this year over an unauthorised protest.

The country has been unsuccessfully trying to have the European Union indicted by the court over the deaths of thousands of African migrants trying to reach the continent by boat.