Sudan delays trial for suspected assassins of US diplomat

August 31, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — The trial for five suspects accused of murdering a US diplomat earlier this year has been delayed for another two weeks in a hearing marred by chaos.

The prosecution alleged that the suspects, who came from the town of Atbara North of the capital Khartoum, randomly picked the target after meeting among themselves and agreeing to strike Western targets on New Years Eve.

“They rode their car and wandered in the streets of Khartoum on New Years looking for their prey and they went through different locations they monitored before where they thought New Years Party would be held” prosecutor Mohamed Al-Mustafa Musa said in remarks reported by the daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published in London.

Musa said that the group modified their plan after failing to locate any places celebrating New Years.

“They randomly came across the victims’ car…they drove parallel to it and fired a round of bullet” the prosecution said.

Following that, the assailants chanted “God is great” then took another car to Atbara where they posted a statement on the internet claiming responsibility for the attack.

John Granville, 33, who worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and his 40-year-old Sudanese driver Abdel-Rahman Abbas were hit in their car by a hail of bullets before dawn on New Year’s Day.

Reuters reported that the five defendants chanted “God is great” as they walked into the East Khartoum court and were greeted by a crowd of supporters who shouted religious slogans and “Down, down, USA.”

All five men wore beards and traditional white gowns, and Reuters reporter at the court saw two of them spit in the faces of two Western women journalists before walking into the building with iron shackles on their ankles.

Among those in the dock was a 23-year-old son of the head of Ansar al-Sunna, a pacifist Muslim sect in Sudan that has no political affiliations but has links to the orthodox Wahhabi sect dominant in Saudi Arabia.

The others were listed as an engineering student, a merchant and a former security officer from Khartoum and a driver from Atbara, in northern Sudan.

The judge adjourned the case to September 11 to allow Granville’s family to appoint a lawyer and to find a larger courtroom, at the request of the defense.

The suspects were part of a cell that is believed to have been formed last year after Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, vehemently rejected the idea of a United Nations peacekeeping mission to Darfur.

One journalist who attended the trial today told Sudan Tribune on condition of anonymity that security was very lax unlike usual and no screening was made by the police.

“I think they did that on purpose to intimidate the Western diplomats so they can convey to their governments the scenario of what would happen if an arrest warrant is issued for the Sudanese president by the International Criminal Court (ICC)” the journalist said.

“At other trials I have been to we were searched at least five times before we were allowed in” he added.

Granville was killed one day after US President George W. Bush signed a law encouraging divestment from companies which do business in Sudan in an effort to up economic pressure on Khartoum over Darfur.

Tension has grown in Sudan since the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in mid-July that he requested an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.

(ST)