Sudan detains opposition PCP lawyer for defaming police

September 3, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese authorities have detained a legal adviser to the opposition Popular Congress Party, on charges of defaming the police, a party official said on Monday.

Kamal Omar, also the lead lawyer in the trial of 10 men charged in last year’s murder of a Sudanese newspaper editor, was arrested on Sunday and spent the night in solitary confinement, party official Hassan Abdullah al-Hussein said.

He told Reuters Omar was charged with defamation over an article he published last week in the party’s newspaper detailing what he described as the police torture of the 10 defendants.

Hussein said the article angered the government security authorities who charged Omar “under section 159 of the criminal code which concerns publishing lies”.

The interior ministry declined to comment.

The party official said Omar was expected to be released later on Monday.

Omar told a Khartoum court in August the confessions of the 10 defendants had been extracted under torture. He pleaded “not guilty” for all of them.

Omar’s detention is the latest in a series of recent crackdowns by Sudanese security agencies on opposition parties.

Authorities have been holding 25 people, including Mubarak al-Fadil, head of the opposition Umma Party for Reform and Renewal, since June in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the government.

Last month, security officials arrested 10 people and confiscated 15,000 copies of an opposition newspaper for reporting on police violence against protesters in northern Sudan.

Sima Samar, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan, said this month she was concerned about the arrests of opposition politicians and urged more transparency from the government.

(Reuters)