The head of the Arab League travelled to Sudan on Sunday night to discuss an Arab plan aimed at defusing the crisis over the indictment of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the country’s president, on genocide charges.

On Saturday an emergency Arab foreign ministers’ meeting had criticised the decision by the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to indict Mr Bashir last week as “unbalanced” because he had not investigated allegations against Darfur rebels.