It is nearly 5,000 miles from the scrub and deserts of south-west Sudan to the urbane, calm capital of the Netherlands, and a journey that Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman never thought he would make.
Eighteen years ago, the 65-year-old was a “feared and revered” commander of a brigade of the infamous Janjaweed militia, paramilitaries deployed alongside Sudanese government forces to carry out a scorched-earth campaign against rebels and their communities that the UN says left 300,000 people dead and displaced 2.5 million.
