Sudan denies imprisonment of former presidential adviser

May 19, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan has denied reports that the former presidential adviser for security affairs Salah Gosh has been detained over accusations that he was involved in an attempted coup against president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

Gosh, who was also the director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) until 2009, was sacked unexpectedly by Bashir last month from his advisory role and was also removed from his leadership position in the ruling party.

He also relieved of his duties as the head of the NCP delegation in the joint committee with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in control of the South.

The once a powerful and longest-serving chief of the country’s intelligence apparatus was dismissed from his position a few days after he publicly fell out with the NCP’s strongman and presidential assistant, Nafie Ali Nafie, over the dialogue he was conducting with opposition parties under the umbrella of the Presidential Security Advisory (PSA), which Gosh chaired.

Gosh publicly contradicted Nafie’s statement that the dialogue was not sanctioned by the party’s leadership, stressing that it was enjoying approval by president Al-Bashir, and that Nafie had no right to interfere in his job.

The newly NCP political secretary Qutbi Al-Mahdi was the most daring official to speak on the firing of Gosh and accused the latter of having “presidential ambitions” which was interpreted to mean that he was planning to oust his boss.

The minister of Sports and Youth Al-Haj Magod Siwar told the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that news of Gosh’s arrest are “baseless” and “purely rumors”.

Rabie Abdel-Aati, a leading NCP figure, denied that Gosh planned to overthrow the government and noted to the newspaper that he was in a better place to do so when he was NISS director and not when he was appointed as Bashir’s adviser.

But sources speaking to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat claimed that Gosh is currently being held at the maximum security Kober prison in the Sudanese capital. They further said that security at the prison was beefed up in an unprecedented manner and said that armored vehicles were deployed around it.

(ST)