Sudanese journalist freed after 2 weeks detention

Oct 15, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — After more than two weeks of detention Sudanese journalist Abu Obeida Abdallah has been released, his paper al-Rai al-Aam said on Sunday.

The paper said he was arrested in connection with telephone contact authorities said he may have had with someone suspected of links to the beheading of a Sudanese journalist last month.

“But Abu Obeida said that during the investigation he had denied he had made any phone call on the said date to the accused,” al-Rai al-Aam said, adding he was released on Saturday night.

The arrest followed the reintroduction of heavy censorship of mainly independent newspapers after the murder of Mohamed Taha, whose beheaded body was found on Sept. 6 dumped on the street in a residential area of Khartoum.

Al-Rai al-Aam editor Kamal Hassan Bakhiet had previously said Abdallah’s arrest had no link to press freedom and that his paper had not seen the heavy censorship other papers experienced.

He had denied earlier comments that Abdallah’s arrest was linked to Taha’s killing.

(Reuters)