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President Jacob Zuma’s government will seek to avoid the political complications that would stem from detaining al- Bashir, according to Shadrack Gutto, a law professor at the University of South Africa.

“I don’t see the government arresting him,” Gutto said by phone from Pretoria. “The matter will go on appeal and by the time it is resolved, he will have left the country.”

Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for South Africa’s Department of International Relations, didn’t respond to telephone calls or messages seeking comment.

As many as 300,000 people have died during an insurgency in Darfur that began in 2003, according to United Nations estimates. The ICC in The Hague indicted al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010. The president was sworn in this month for another five- year term in office.

“Al-Bashir is a fugitive from justice,” Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy director for Africa, said in an e-mailed statement. South Africa should “spare no effort” in seeking to arrest the president, Sidiki Kaba, head of the Assembly of States to the Rome Statute of the ICC, said Saturday in a statement on the court’s website.

African Union Commission Chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in a speech at the opening of the summit Sunday, congratulated al-Bashir and other leaders for winning elections.

Al-Bashir was re-elected in an April vote that the main opposition parties boycotted.

Some AU members that helped to create the Rome Statute are failing to enforce the measure, according to Jakkie Cilliers, executive director at the Institute for Security Studies.

“A number of African countries were very active in the development of the whole Rome Statute, including South Africa,” he said by phone from Pretoria. “On the one hand, the African Union says nobody will be able to escape being held accountable. But on the other hand, when the ICC — which the AU’s member states helped create — acts, they step back.”