African nations will not execute an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued for Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi, an African Union summit decided Friday.
The summit in Equatorial Guinea said the warrant issued on Monday hampered efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict between Gaddafi’s forces and Libyan rebels.
An assembly of the summit decided that “AU member states shall not cooperate in the execution of the arrest warrant,” according to a text of the decisions.
The warrant “seriously complicates the efforts aimed at finding a negotiated political settlement to the crisis in Libya, which will also address, in a mutually reinforcing way, issues related to impunity and reconciliation,” it said.
The 53-nation African Union took a similar stance against an ICC warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2009 on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. On Monday the ICC issued warrants for Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, for atrocities committed in a bloody uprising that began mid-February.