Sudanese government charges 36 opposition members with subversion
KHARTOUM, Sudan, July 06, 2004 (AP) — The state charged 36 members of the opposition Popular Congress party Tuesday with trying to overthrow the government of President Omar el-Bashir.
Among the accused are 18 members of Sudan’s armed forces, prosecutor Isam Abdel-Qader el-Zein told reporters. The charges include attempting to undermine the government, inciting rebellion and violent acts of opposition, and destabilizing the country.
The accused comprise about half the 71 Popular Congress officials, members and sympathizers that police detained in April on suspicion of subversion. The leader of the party, Hassan Turabi, was among those detained, but he was not among those charged on Tuesday.
Last week, all the detainees were reported to have begun a hunger strike to protest their three months in detention without trial.
The Popular Congress party has denied plotting to overthrow the government.
The leading detainees to be charged Tuesday were former Agriculture Minister Haj Adam and Popular Congress executive Suleiman Ragab, a prominent lawyer.
El-Zein told reporters that charges against one of the 71 detainees, whom he did not name, had been dropped and the man had been released. He did not say anything about the fate of the remaining detainees.
The accused will appear in court on Wednesday to set a date for the beginning of their trial, el-Zein said.
Turabi was the main ideologue of the Islamic fundamentalist government set up after el-Bashir seized power in a military coup 1989. He and el-Bashir fell out in 1999 after the president accused Turabi, then speaker of parliament, of trying to grab power and stripped him of his position.
Turabi subsequently spent two years under house arrest after his party signed a peace accord with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which was then fighting government forces in the south of the country.
Turabi’s wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, told The Associated Press last week that prison officials had beaten the detainees and deprived them of medicine.