Sudan frees Islamic leader Turabi, lifts party ban
KHARTOUM, June 30 (Reuters) – Sudanese authorities released prominent Islamist leader Hassan Turabi on Thursday after 15 months’ detention, marking a step towards reconciliation among Khartoum’s political elite.
“He has been released from the place he was being held and he is on his way to the headquarters of the party,” Turabi’s secretary Awad Babiker told Reuters.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in a speech on Thursday that his government had decided to release all political prisoners and undertake other reform measures.
He said that, as soon as a new interim constitution was signed in July, a state of emergency would come to an end except in troubled parts of the vast country — the western region of Darfur and two states in the east.
Earlier on Thursday, Sudanese authorities lifted a ban on Turabi’s political party and told it Turabi would go free.
Turabi, an ideologue well known throughout the Muslim world, has been in detention or house arrest since March 2004.
The Islamist leader, who was born in 1932 and has spent several long periods in custody during a tumultuous career, was accused of plotting a coup against Bashir, a former ally. However, he was never charged and did not face trial.
The authorities have linked the Popular Congress with the rebellion in the western region of Darfur, for which Turabi had publicly expressed sympathy.
Other members of the Popular Congress were implicated in a second alleged coup attempt in September last year.
The political climate in Khartoum has improved since the government and southern rebels signed an agreement in January ending more than 20 years of civil war.
A new government, including the southern rebels, is expected to take office in August under the new constitution, which is still being negotiated.
The government also needs to broaden its support base at home to counter U.N. and U.S. pressure to hand over people accused of war crimes in the Darfur conflict. The government says it will try any suspects in Sudanese courts.
Turabi is the former mentor of Bashir, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1989. However, the two parted ways after a power struggle in 2001. Turabi was then detained for about two years.
He was also jailed imediately after the 1989 coup.