* Sudan "not serious" about pursuing Darfur militias-minister
* State minister is member of south Sudan's main party
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Sudan is protecting two men wanted for war crimes in Darfur and is "not serious" about pursuing members of allied militias for committing atrocities, the country's own state minister for justice said on Wednesday.
Minister Bol Lul Wang is a member of south Sudan's dominant Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), former southern rebels who joined a coalition government with the north after a 2005 peace deal ended decades of civil war.
The statements from inside the coalition will test already strained north-south relations as south Sudan prepares to secede, after southerners overwhelmingly chose to declare independence in a referendum this month. [ID:nLDE70708L]
Wang told Reuters he and thousands of other southern officials were now preparing to leave the north to take up positions in the new south Sudan after its expected independence on July 9.
The justice ministry appointed a prosecutor in 2008 to investigate reports of war crimes in Darfur region, the scene of a nearly eight-year conflict pitting mostly non-Arab insurgents against government troops and allied, mostly-Arab militias.
When asked whether Sudan was currently pursuing active cases against two men wanted for war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC) -- militia leader Ali Kushayb and state governor Ahmed Haroun -- Wang answered: "Not at all."
"The prosecutor may find some difficulties taking procedures against them because they are being protected by the government," he said in an interview in his Khartoum office.
"These people are high figures in the government. The government has no will to pursue or even investigate those people ... It is not serious. Because if it was serious they would not let a man like Haroun hold a ministerial post."
Neither Darfur prosecutor Abdel Daim Zumrawi nor his predecessor Nimr Ibrahim Mohamed were immediately available for comment.
The ICC's prosecutor accused Haroun of recruiting and arming "Janjaweed" militias to crush the Darfur uprising, as part of Haroun's then job as minister of state for the interior.
Haroun, who denies the allegations, went on to become state (or junior) minister for humanitarian affairs before moving to his current position as governor of the oil-producing region of Southern Kordofan.
Later in 2008 the justice ministry said the prosecutor had wrapped up an investigation into charges against Kushayb but has since not announced any prosecution and officials have made contradictory statements about whether he is detained.
The Khartoum government has refused to recognise the Hague- based ICC which has issued arrest warrants for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accusing him of orchestrating genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Wang said Sudan's prosecutor was investigating allegations of atrocities carried out by Darfur insurgents. "There are some people who are working on it ... From time to time they go to Darfur. But (the suspects) have escaped to areas beyond the control of the government."
There were also some investigations into members of Arab militias in Darfur, he added. "It seems like the government is not serious about taking a very immediate measure against them. It is very reluctant." (editing by David Stamp)
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