Death penalty for killers of US diplomat in Sudan overruled
August 12, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese appeals court today scrapped the capital punishment for four men convicted of killing a US Agency for International Development (USAID) employee and his local driver last year.
Rahma’s family insisted before the court that the death sentence be carried out.
Furthermore, the mother of the USAID employee John Granville have sent a letter to the court saying that she believes that life imprisonment is the appropriate punishment for the murder but since Sudanese law does not provide for that “I have no other option” but to endorse the capital punishment “to protect others from those killed my beloved son”.
The case is sent back to the original trial judge to reconsider the sentence based on the ruling of the appeals court.
Both men were 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.
Five men were found guilty last June by a Sudanese court but only four were sentenced to death by hanging while the fifth was sentenced to two years in prison because his role was limited to supplying the weapon for the attack.
The convicts sentenced are believed to be belonging to an Islamic militant group Ansar al-Tawhid which claimed responsibility for the killing.
(ST)
Free Son
Death penalty for killers of US diplomat in Sudan overruled
Do you see now, this is the justice situation in Sudan. The obvious contradicting reports shows the ‘nifaaq’ of the ‘jallaaba’ in the northern arab controlled part of Sudan. In my opinion, murderers always deserve the cruelest kind of death penalty or capital punishment imaginable and be carried out while they are 100% aware of what is going on without use of drugs that make them unconscious. However, the ‘security’ agents I normally call them the dogs in Khartoum will work very hard to rescue their colleagues the terrorists as the whole system in the Sudan including the judiciary are all ‘jawaasiis aljabah’