Sudan charges 92 over alleged coup plot
KHARTOUM, Nov 24 (AFP) — Sudan has filed charges against 92 people suspected of involvement in an alleged coup attempt to topple President Omar al-Beshir’s Islamist government, the state prosecutor was quoted as saying Wednesday.
The suspects, among them 18 members of the armed forces, face charges that carry the death sentence or life in prison, prosecutor general Salah Abuzaid said, according to press reports.
He said most of those charged over the alleged September coup plot were members of the opposition Popular Congress Party of Hassan al-Turabi, who is in jail awaiting trial on a raft of offences against the state.
Opposition figures have denounced the coup claims as an effort to divert attention from the crisis in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, where up to 70 000 poeple have been killed and about 1,4-million left homeless amid clashes between ethnic minority rebels and state-sponsored Arab militia.
The 18 military personnel will face court martial, Abuzaid said, adding that the investigation found “adequate evidence that justifies referring the suspects to justice”.
He said the charges against the 74 civilians, who include a number of retired military servicemen, ranged from undermining the constitutional regime, inciting war against the state and passing intelligence to a foreign country.
“Those charges carry punishments of death and life imprisonment, depending on the role each suspect played in the subversive attempt,” Abuzaid said.
He said the authorities had “material evidence” against members of Turabi’s party, including seized caches of weapons and communication devices, adding that the suspects would have a week from Monday to appeal the decision to file charges.
But defence lawyer Abdel Salam al-Juzouli said none of the 94 were officials of the Popular Congress, but were rather ordinary people who had come from Darfur and were arrested in Khartoum.
A one-time mentor of Beshir, the 74-year-old Turabi is awaiting trial on a charges including incitement to sedition, sabotage and undermining the regime.
He was first jailed in March amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathizers of the ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, where the fighting has led to what the United Nations is calling the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.
Turabi had been increasingly critical of the scorched earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur, while Khartoum has accused him and his Islamist party of fanning the conflict.
One of the two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, belongs to the Islamist current.