Sudan releases 12 senior members of opposition Popular Congress party

KHARTOUM, Sudan, July 13, 2004 (AP) — Twelve members of a Sudanese opposition party, including a junior government minister, have been freed after more than three months in detention on suspicion of subversion, a senior party official said Tuesday.

More than 20 Popular Congress Party members and sympathizers, however, remain uncharged but in custody, including party leader and prominent Islamic ideologue Hassan Turabi. The party’s deputy secretary-general, Moussa Almak Kour, expressed hope authorities would release all of the detainees.

“I don’t think that there has been any justification for arresting them within the government’s pledges for democratic reforms, freedom and peace,” Kour told The Associated Press.

Turabi and 70 others were detained in April on suspicion of subversion. Last week, state prosecutors charged 36 of them, including 18 members of Sudan ‘s armed forces, with trying to undermine President Omar el-Bashir’s government, inciting rebellion and violent acts of opposition, and destabilizing the country.

The party has denied plotting to overthrow the government.

The official Sudan Media Center quoted a state security and intelligence department statement as saying 12 detainees, including Omar Abdel-Marouf, former state minister for defense, were released Monday. They were freed, it said, following “periodical assessment of their condition and as a result of the investigation and information received on each detainee.”

Turabi was the main ideologue behind the Islamic fundamentalist government set up after el-Bashir seized power in a military coup 1989. He and el-Bashir had a falling 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 southern Sudan