Detained UNAMID staffer charged, feared tortured

July 19, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A Sudanese employee of the UN-AU Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has been detained by local security authorities since late April and is now charged with offenses punishable by death, an international NGO said on Thursday.

The global rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) said in an appeal for urgent action that Idris Yousef Abdelrahman, a civil affairs officer working for UNAMID in Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur State, was reported missing on 27 April after he responded to a summons by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) which said it wanted to clarify with him on how civil society participants had been selected to take part in the Doha peace conference for Darfur.

According to AI release, UNAMID was informed of Abdelrahman’s detention on 10 May, and that he was not been allowed access to a lawyer or his family until 12 July.

On 12 July Abdelrahman was charged with ‘undermining the constitutional system’ and ‘waging war against the state’ under articles 50 and 51 of the Sudanese Criminal Act 1991, AI said. AI said it fears that the charges, both of which carry the death penalty as a maximum sentence, are “politically motivated.”

AI further expressed fears that Abdelrahman is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, citing previous patterns of detentions by NISS.

AI argued that Abdelrahman’s detention falls foul of the the Status of Forces Agreement between the Government of Sudan and UNAMID, saying that the agreement stipulates that UNAMID’s Joint Special Representative (JSR) should immediately be informed if the government considers a UNAMID staff member to have committed a criminal offence.

For its part, UNAMID said it leadership continues to press local authorities for the immediate release of Abdelrahman.

(ST)