* Bashir defiant on return from latest trip * Says Sudanese aid groups will control food aid in a year (Recasts with return to Khartoum, quotes) By Khaled Abdelaziz KHARTOUM, April 1 (Reuters) - Crowds of supporters welcomed Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir back to Khartoum on Wednesday on his return from his latest trip abroad in defiance of an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Bashir's flew into Khartoum from Saudi Arabia, the fifth foreign state he has visited since the court issued an arrest warrant against him on March 4, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. The official Saudi news agency said Bashir visited the Red Sea port city of Jeddah to perform umrah, a short Islamic pilgrimage. He earlier attended a summit of Arab and Latin American leaders in Qatar's capital Doha. "We went to the summit to show the people who said that we couldn't travel outside Sudan that we can travel outside Sudan ... nobody can intimidate us into not travelling," he told reporters at Khartoum airport, while a large crowd of supporters gathered outside waving banners bearing his image. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has raised the idea of diverting a plane carrying another Darfur war crimes suspect but the court has no enforcement apparatus of its own and depends on member states to arrest any suspects. Bashir has so far visited only countries that are not members of the court. His trip to Doha on Sunday was his longest and most risky journey abroad so far. The visit to Saudi Arabia gave him a shorter return leg, across the Red Sea. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal has said that issuing the arrest warrant was a politicised decision that "will not lead to the stability of Sudan or solve the Darfur issue". International experts say at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.7 million driven from their homes in almost six years of ethnic and political fighting in Darfur. Khartoum says 10,000 people have died. Bashir again defended his decision to expel 13 foreign aid groups that he had accused of helping the ICC mount its war crimes case against him, saying the aid groups were spies. The U.N. has warned that expulsions could have a devastating impact on the humanitarian impact in the long term. The aid groups, including parts of prominent organisations like Oxfam and Save the Children, deny helping the court. Bashir also repeated his promise that Sudanese aid groups would take over the distribution of all humanitarian relief in north Sudan within a year. "The Sudanese Red Crescent already distributes 45 percent of the food in Darfur. It's not impossible for us to distribute the 55 percent of the food that remains." (Edited by Andrew Heavens and Philippa Fletcher)
Ethnic Tibetan women hold banners which read "50 years of genocide 1959-2009" during a protest against Chinese rule in Tibet, in central Barcelona, March 28, 2009. China declared March 28 as ...
International Humanitarian Law
