An international arrest warrant was issued today for Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, despite fears of a violent backlash that could disrupt the African country's fragile peace process.

After eight months of consideration, the three judges decided not to press charges of genocide sought by the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Nevertheless it was a bold move by the International Criminal Court, marking the first time since the world's first permanent court for prosecuting war crimes was founded in 2002 that it has ordered the arrest of a sitting head of state.

The prosecutor had asked for arrest warrants on ten charges, including genocide, murder, torture, extermination and rape.

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Now that the court has finally issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, the Obama Administration has a decision of principle to make

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In all, the judges issued a warrant today on seven counts: five of crimes against humanity - murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape; two of war crimes - intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population or individual civilians, and pillaging.

The judges decided by 2-1 to reject the genocide accusation because they felt that the evidence did not support the prosecution suggestion that four specific ethnic groups were targeted by Mr al-Bashir. If further evidence came forward, the genocide charge could still be made, a court spokeswoman said.

"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property," Laurence Blairon said.

She said that Mr al-Bashir's position as head of state gave him no immunity from the charges.

Asked why the genocide charge did not stick, Ms Blairon added: "Genocide in the popular language amounts to mass murder but in law it has a very specific definition. In order to speak about genocide, you need to have a clear intent that a person wishes to destroy in part or as a whole a specific group, and in this particular case the pre-trial chamber has not been able to find there were reasonable grounds to establish a genocidal intent. So that is why the count of genocide has not been reached by the judges."

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that he could appeal to the judges over their rejection of genocide charges.

"Omar al-Bashir's destiny is to face justice. In two months or in two years, he will face justice," he said. "What is happening in Darfur is that 2.5 million people are dying slowly in the camps ... 5,000 are dying each month. It is time to protect the victims, it is time to stop bombing civilians, it is time to stop the rapes, it is time to stop the crimes."

He urged Sudan to arrest Mr al-Bashir and, failing that, called upon any other state to apprehend him. "As soon as Mr al-Bashir travels in international airspace his plane could be intercepted and he could be arrested. That is what I expect."

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