Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese President, became a fugitive from justice yesterday after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr al-Bashir becomes the first sitting head of state to be issued with such a warrant. The move was hailed by the West as a victory for human rights. Others called it a form of “white man's justice” that would destabilise any hopes of peace in the Sudanese province of Darfur.

Sudan responded swiftly by expelling at least ten leading international agencies, leaving millions of people without aid in Darfur, and raising fears that a new military offensive was imminent in the region. The charities expelled include Oxfam, Care International, Save the Children and Action Contre la Faim.

In the ICC's ruling Mr al-Bashir escaped charges of genocide sought by the prosecutor of the world's first permanent war crimes court. Instead he stood accused of “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”.

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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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Khartoum rejects the court's authority and has already refused to hand over two other senior figures charged with war crimes in Darfur. Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in Darfur, where Arab militiamen backed by the Sudanese military have attacked civilians to stamp out a rebellion by non-Arab groups.

The arrest warrant puts the West on a collision course with the African Union, the Arab League, China and Russia, who have warned that it could worsen the Darfur conflict and threaten the already troubled peace deal between Khartoum and the semi-autonomous South.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) announced that it could no longer talk to a regime whose leader had been indicted for war crimes.

The Arab League said that it was very disturbed by the decision while the African Union urged the UN Security Council to suspend the warrant for 12 months in the interests of peace - a move that Britain has previously mooted as a reward to Khartoum if it took “concrete action” to halt the violence in Darfur.

That looks unlikely. UN officials on the ground reported increased tensions and a heavy presence of Sudanese government troops.

Mr al-Bashir vowed to go ahead with a long-planned visit to the Arab summit in Qatar on March 29, the first challenge to the warrant's international force. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the court's prosecutor, reminded the 108 governments that are ICC signatories of their legal obligation to enact the warrant. Qatar is not a signatory but the court's registrar said yesterday the same was expected of any UN member state. Mr Moreno Ocampo said that he wants Mr al-Bashir's aircraft to be intercepted as soon as it leaves Sudanese airspace.

Mr Moreno Ocampo said that he would consider an appeal to add genocide to the charges after the judges ruled there was insufficient evidence that Mr al-Bashir had led a deliberate and ethnically motivated campaign to wipe out three non-Arab tribes. “Omar al-Bashir's destiny is to face justice,” he vowed. “In two months or in two years he will face justice. 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.” How that will happen remains unclear. The Sudanese authorities refuse to recognise the court, the ICC, based in The Hague, has no police force to arrest him and the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan will not enact the warrant for fear of violent reprisals and eviction from the country. It also remains unclear how the rest of the world will deal with a Government headed by an indicted war criminal with an international arrest warrant on his head. Foreign governments have been examining the legality of their dealings with Khartoum as a result of the warrant.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav President, and Charles Taylor, the ex-Liberian leader, were also indicted while still in office but arrest warrants were not issued until after they were forced from power. Both ended up on trial in The Hague, where Taylor is preparing his defence case and Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006 before the process concluded.

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