Ahmed Haroun: ICC suspect held by the Sudanese army he says helped fight the RSF

Sudan's army has detained Ahmed Haroun, the chairman of the former ruling National Congress Party, according to two party officials. Haroun had been hiding for years. The International Criminal Court wants him on charges of alleged war crimes and genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s. He has dismissed the charges as political.

On Saturday, in a televised podcast interview, Haroun said the NCP and the army may not be politically aligned but were united in the civil war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Operatives from the movement say they helped the army's advances against the RSF during more than three years of fighting that has caused waves of ethnic killings, famine and mass displacement.

It is unclear why the army moved against a figure whose network has been fighting on its side. The Sudanese army has not commented. The ICC has not reacted.

That silence leaves the central question open: is this accountability, wartime politics, or both? The detention of a long-sought ICC suspect is a notable development for international criminal accountability. But an army detaining a man whose movement says it helped it fight raises the possibility that the arrest serves internal wartime purposes rather than, or alongside, the ICC case.

What happens next is not yet known. What is clear is that the man who said on Saturday that his movement and the army were united against the RSF is now in the army's custody, and neither the army nor the court has explained why.