Trial of Sudanese rights defender postponed for third time

August 16, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – A Sudanese court Wednesday has postponed the trial of the human rights defender Mudawi Ibrahim for the third time to publish summon to one of the accused.

Ibrahim, an engineering professor and Chair of the non-governmental organisation Sudan Social Development Organisation (SUDO) was arrested on 7 December 2016 by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

Last June, Sudan’s state security prosecutor office charged him with six offences under the 1991 Penal Code, some of which are punishable by death.

Ibrahim’s lawyer, Nabeel Adib, Wednesday said the court demanded during the first session three months to publish summon for the accused Tasneem Taha, pointing the judge delayed the trial session today because the summon hasn’t been published.

Taha, 25 a lawyer from El-Fasher had been detained in December 2016 in relation to Ibrahim’s arrest and was released later. Since she left the country for Egypt.

Adib told Sudan Tribune the defence team pledged to publish court summons for Taha in a Sudanese and an Egyptian newspaper, expecting the trial to proceed at an accelerating pace starting from the next session scheduled for 17 September.

For her part, Ibrahim’s wife, Sabah Adam, has expressed discontent over the delay of the trial session for the third time.

“Our family is very angry over the postponement of the trial once again …it is a matter of procrastination which aims to keep him in jail due to lack of evidence,” she told Sudan Tribune.

From December 2003 to January 2005, Mudawi had been arrested, during several months in connection with his work with the SUDO in Darfur.

(ST)