'Zuma assured AU al-Bashir would not be arrested,' claims Mugabe

President Jacob Zuma gave the African Union summit assurances that Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir would not be arrested, Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe has said.

Responding to questions by journalists following the close of the AU summit in Sandton just before midnight on Monday, Mugabe said because Bashir was a wanted man, NGOs were going to court to try force his arrest.

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"This is not the headquarters of the ICC and we do not want it in this region at all," Mugabe said.

"There is a view that we must distance ourselves from the ICC, but unfortunately the treaty that set it up was done not by the AU, but by individual countries," he said.

"But those who signed the treaty are now regretting. We didn't sign it as Zimbabwe. We won't subject ourselves to justice outside our country's borders."

He said NGOs were used by outsiders to go to court to force government to arrest Bashir, "because he is a wanted man by the ICC".

Mugabe said in court "not all judges think like we do", and they might dislike "freedom fighters" or the way things are done in a certain country, he said.