57 prisoners set free after Darfur JEM rebels commit to talks

February 24, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – President Omer Al-Bashir ordered prison authorities to release 57 detainees affiliated with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). This is said to be up to half the total number of detainees, all of whom the government had promised to release in the Framework Agreement it signed with JEM in Ndjamena on February 20.

The 57 prisoners of war left Kober Prison on Wednesday, in accordance with the presidential decree. The president’s decision annuls death sentences that had been imposed on 50 of the 57 released. Special courts had ordered the execution of the prisoners of war for their alleged role in the powerful JEM rebel movement’s raid on the Sudanese capital in May 2008.

JEM and Sudan secretly negotiated the Framework Agreement in Ndjamena, Chad, under the auspices of the Chadian president Idriss Déby, who is a member of the same ethnic group as the rebel movement leader Khalil Ibrahim. The deal was signed on Saturday but also later affirmed Tuesday in a ceremony in Doha, Qatar. The Framework Agreement spells out generally what the two parties will agree upon in a final peace agreement meant to be signed before March 15.

Minister of Justice Abdul-Basit Sabadrat said in press conference held at Kober Prison that President Al-Bashir raised the percentage of those to be released to 50% instead of 30% of JEM detainees, putting the number of those released to 57. The official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) also reported that Abdul-Aziz Ushar, brother of Khalil Ibrahim, was not among those released.

Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir, speaking in an electoral meeting held in El-Fasher the capital of North Darfur, has pledged today to release the rest of JEM fighter in the near future.

The Government of Sudan specifically and definitively agreed to the release of all prisoners, detainees and convicts held in relation to the conflict “upon signature of the present accord,” said the framework agreement in its french version.

Ghazi Salah Al-Deen, the ruling party official in charge of the Darfur peace process for the government, speaking this morning in Khartoum said the ceremonial signing of the Framework Agreement had been delayed for two hours yesterday due to divergence with JEM over the release of JEM fighters. He further said that JEM demanded to “modify” the Framework Agreement, adding that there had been some misunderstanding on how to deal with the release of JEM members.

The NCP official’s explanation was that “perhaps those who oversaw the paper were not those who negotiated in N’Djamena and they have this understanding, but we are now beyond this issue and we released a third of them and the rest will be freed at the earliest opportunity”.

Regarding the ceasefire announced as part of the Framework Agreement, the Sudan Armed Forces spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad in a statement to SUNA affirmed the forces’ full commitment to the ceasefire in Darfur.

(ST)