Khartoum - Sudan's ruling party nominated President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for re-election on Saturday despite an International Criminal Court warrant to arrest him for war crimes.

The Hague-based court says the government of Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup with Islamist backing, committed crimes against humanity while fighting mostly non-Arab rebels in Darfur.

The multi-party elections set for April 2010 will be the first in Africa's largest country in 24 years.

Since the arrest warrant was issued last year, Bashir has received full backing from his party, which dominates the central government. He has travelled to countries that support him, in defiance of The Hague-based court.

Bashir signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 ending another decades-long civil war fought over ideology, ethnicity, religion and oil which killed 2 million people. That deal enshrined democratic transformation and set the stage for the April vote.

The NCP is the first major political party to officially nominate a candidate for president.