Genocide charges were filed by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for the five years in which he allegedly carried out a brutal campaign in Darfur.

The Netherlands-based ICC has been asked by the court's chief prosecutor to issue an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, ICC’s chief prosecutor, presented the evidence against al-Bashir on Monday to the judges at the Hague. The news triggered a massive government-organized rally in Sudan’s capital city. Several hundreds of people also gather round the cabinet office on Sunday where the government was holding emergency talks.

The judges at the Hague must now decide whether to issue the arrest warrant. Considering the fact that they have approved all 11 of Moreno-Ocampo's previous submissions to the court, the outcome of this decision isn’t very hard to guess. Consequently, it is highly probable that al-Bashir will soon be the first sitting president indicted by the ICC for genocide.

Moreno-Ocampo said in court documents that there are reasonable grounds to believe that al-Bashir is responsible for 5 counts of genocide, 2 counts of crimes against humanity, and 2 counts of war crimes.

The charges allege that al-Bashir is responsible of genocide after the Sudanese government carried out a very cruel counter-insurgency campaign after rebels began an uprising in Sudan's western Darfur region five years ago.

According to several reports from the United Nations, western governments and human rights organizations, the Sudanese authorities worked together with Arab militias who went from village to village in Darfur, killing, torturing and raping the inhabitants.

According to UN estimates, more than 300,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million were forced to leave their homes.

"For such crimes to be committed over a period of five years and throughout Darfur, al-Bashir had to mobilize and keep mobilized the whole state apparatus; he had to control and direct perpetrators; and he had to rely on a genocidal plan," Moreno-Ocampo wrote as background for arrest warrant request.