Disappearance of Janjaweed leader raises questions in Sudan

October 3, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese government denied reports on the defection of a Janjaweed leader as his whereabouts remain unknown since last May despite being elected to the parliament in the elections that took place more than five months ago.

Musa Hilal, leader of the Darfuri Arab Mahameed clan, is widely believed to be the head of the notorious Janjaweed militias blamed for devastating violence against African tribes in Sudan’s Western region.

Rabie Abdulatti, a senior official at the National Congress party (NCP) told the Saudi based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Hilal remains an adviser for the ministry of federal government since his appointment by president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir in January 2008.

Unidentified sources told the newspaper that Hilal was frustrated with the government which barred him from leaving to Jordan to seek medical treatment citing security reasons. Others rumors in Khartoum say that he has traveled outside the country.

The head of the legislative bloc for North Darfur Hussein Abdullah Gibreel told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Hilal has not sworn the oath to be admitted to the parliament for ‘personal reasons” .

He added that the Darfur figure is currently in Mastraeeha town in North Darfur and will take the oath next week as the second legislative session commences.

Hilal has been named by numerous eyewitnesses in Darfur as leading terror campaign against the African tribes during the war that erupted in 2003.

However, the tribal leader denied any wrongdoings and told Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a videotaped interview in 2005, that he only recruited militias on behalf of Sudan’s central government.

The 43 years old was jailed by the Sudanese authorities in 1998 for leading armed robbery of the central bank in the city of Nyala in Darfur. However the First Vice president Ali Osman Taha secured his release in 2002 and asked him to help mobilize Arab tribes against Darfur rebels who took arms against the central government.

Hilal was named in the filings made by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor in February 2007 as making a speech alongside with one of the two suspects Ahmed Haroun in July 2003, which was characterized as “racist”. However he was not named as a war crime suspect.

“Hilal was enthusiastic about unifying to fight the enemy and characterized the conflict as a holy war” the ICC prosecutor said in the document he submitted to the judges.

The UN Security Council imposed travel and financial sanctions on Hilal and three other individuals in April 2006.

(ST)