Sudan formally charges opposition leaders with coup attempt
By Wasil Ali
November 18, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government formally charged 28 jailed opposition leaders for the first time in four months according to press reports.
The Sudanese justice minister Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi said that the detainees will be prosecuted before court very shortly.
Sudanese security services arrested Mubarak al-Fadil, leader of the Umma Reform and Renewal opposition party mid-July over allegations of planning a coup attempt.
The former presidential assistant was arrested along with a number of retired army generals, including retired general Mohamed Ali Hamid, who worked as deputy director of security in the late eighties, as well as former minister of tourism, Abdeljalil al-Basha.
Sudan also arrested Ali Mahmoud Hassanein, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in connection with the alleged coup attempt.
A statement issued by Al-Fadil’s office said that the decision to bring charges “confirms without doubt that the detention of Al-Fadil and Mr. Abdeljalil Basha, was for almost 5 month without legal support is a political arrest”.
Al-Fadil’s office said that the case is politicized “related to the struggle for power”. The statement stressed that Al-Fadil and Hassanein will continue their hunger strike.
“The transfer of the documents of the case, to the Minister of Justice rather than to the judicial courts, proves that the matter is a cheap delaying tactic to lengthen the period in which the political detainees are kept in prison” the statement read.
Sudan’s announcement of thwarting the coup attempt was received with skepticism due to the vague nature of the plot and officials have been making contradictory statements regarding the sabotage plot.
Last month the daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published in London quoted unidentified security officials as saying that Sudan’s military intelligence division and the Security bureau exchanged blame on the validity of evidence linking opposition leaders to the plot.
The report filed also suggested that Sudan Security bureau may have been misled by informants who are under investigation. Security officials also told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that a Captain in the Sudanese army believed to be the main source of the information implicating Al-Fadil and others is also under investigation.
Originally Sudanese security officials said that the sabotage plot leader Mubarak al-Fadil sought help from a neighboring Arab country and a “major world power”.
The two countries were believed to be Libya and the United States respectively.
But then Sudanese officials denied any foreign involvement and upgraded charges against Al-Fadil to a full blown coup attempt and said that political assassinations was part of the plot.
However security officials who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity said al-Fadil had sought support from Libya. The officials said Libya had turned him down and informed Sudanese authorities.
Earlier this month Salah Gosh, the head of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Service, told the Al-Ahdath daily from Libya that his office no longer has anything to do with the proceedings of the coup attempt.
(ST)