Student’s death in Omdurman said to be political murder

February 14, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – Mohamed Moussa, the student whose body was found Thursday with marks of torture, was an activist in the student organization affiliated with the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed Al-Nur. He was abducted on the afternoon of Wednesday, February 10, at the main gate of the Khartoum University Faculty of Education in Omdurman.

A member of the Darfur Bar Association stated that the kidnappers, who arrived at the university in a truck, were members of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

Moussa was found dead the next day in an open space in El Nile town in Omdurman, said the lawyer. Another account distributed by the Sudanese Communist Party stated that he was found dead inside a school in Al-Gamayir neighborhood in Omdurman. “His body bore signs of wounds and burns,” read a press statement from the party.

Likewise, the news agency Reuters cited Darfuri student Mohamed Adam who saw the body at the morgue: “His hands were burnt, his skin cut up … and his clothes soaked in blood,” he said.

Moussa’s full name is Mohamed Moussa Abdullah Bahraldien. He was a native of Kebkabiya in North Darfur, according to the independent Radio Dabanga broadcasting from exile. The police have refused to give his family a copy of the report of the morgue.

Student organizations affiliated with the SLM of exiled rebel leader Abdel Wahid Al-Nur have been targeted in the past in a number of Sudanese cities. Darfuri student Mutasim Boker told Reuters that the ruling National Congress Party were responsible, saying “This was definitely NCP … this is not the first time they have targeted us.”

The statement of the Sudanese Communist Party stressed that the circumstances of the murder incline them to believe that the student had been killed for political reasons, particularly since Moussa was known for his activism in the student organization of the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed Al-Nur.

The campaign phase of Sudan’s nationwide elections began yesterday. Legal provisions granting security organs broad powers of arrest and detention have not been suspended ahead of the April elections.

(ST)