Interior minister resigns after inquiry finds irregularities

KHARTOUM, Sudan, June 16, 2005 (AP) — The interior minister, Lt. Gen. Abdel-Rahim Hussein, has resigned after an inquiry into a building collapse found irregularities in its construction, the official Sudan Media Center reported Thursday.

The collapsed building .

The report did not say whether President Omar el-Bashir had accepted the resignation.

Hussein has been a close ally of el-Bashir since the 1989 military coup that brought him to power.

Hussein also advises the president on Darfur, the western region in which about 2 million people have been displaced in a two-year conflict, and is a member of the executive of the ruling National Congress Party.

It was not immediately clear if he would be stepping down from these positions.

The Sudan Media Center said Hussein had submitted his resignation, “shouldering full moral and political responsibility” for the irregularities revealed by a judicial inquiry into the collapse of a university building in March.