The prosecutor of the new International Criminal Court has said he is investigating killings, mass rapes and other atrocities in western Sudan but can only interview witnesses outside of lawless Darfur. Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine who was asked by the UN Security Council in March to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in Darfur, also told the council that the Sudanese government had been cooperating with him. But Mohammed al-Mardi, Sudan's justice minister told Reuters in an interview that Moreno Ocampo's investigators would not have any access to Darfur, where ethnic cleansing has resulted in killings, rape and the uprooting of 2 million refugees. He said: "The ICC officials have no jurisdiction inside the Sudan or with regards to Sudanese citizens. They cannot investigate anything on Darfur".
Moreno Ocampo, as well as the current Security Council president, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, told reporters no such official notice had been received from Khartoum. Jones Perry said: "We will judge the government of Sudan by its actions," adding that if Sudan did not cooperate: "we will need to respond to that and we will respond to that".