Sudan pledges to cooperate with FBI over killing of USAID staff

January 4, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — FBI agents received promises of cooperation from the Sudanese authorities as they began work in Khartoum to help probe the murder of a US diplomat and his driver, the State Department said Friday.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agents, apparently four of them, had arrived from posts in the region to help investigate the New Year’s day murders of diplomat John Granville and driver Abdel Rahman Abbas.

“They’re working with our diplomatic security people,” McCormack told reporters.

“I know that we have met with the government of Sudan’s security services people,” he said.

“They have pledged cooperation in piecing together exactly what happened, making sure that the team, FBI and Diplomatic Security, have an opportunity to look at all the evidence, piece it together, put together a picture of exactly what happened that night, and then from there proceed on to identifying who is responsible, then bringing them to justice,” he added.

He said little was known until now of the events surrounding the murders.

“At this point I wouldn’t say that we have a clear picture. The team just arrived on the ground. I would expect that they will probably be augmented by others. But they have started their work,” McCormack said.

More investigators were due to fly to Khartoum from Washington, but a State Department official said they had not left the US capital yet.

Granville, 33, who worked for the US Agency for International Development, and his 40-year-old driver were struck down in their car by a hail of bullets before dawn on January 1.

It is not clear if the gunmen specifically targeted the official or were involved in a random crime, although Sudan’s foreign ministry has called the attack “an isolated incident which has no political connotations.”

Granville’s body was repatriated to the United States late on Thursday.

(AFP)