Sudan’s Turabi bitten by rat, in poor health-wife

KHARTOUM, July 13 (Reuters) – Jailed Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi was bitten by a rat and is in very poor health in terrible conditions in his Khartoum prison, his wife said on Tuesday.

Turabi, a former ally of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, was detained at the end of March when authorities accused him of inciting tribal tensions and said his opposition political party had funded rebels in the western Darfur area.

“He was bitten by a rat and we are very worried about rabies,” Wisal al-Mahdi told Reuters. “The conditions in which he is being kept are appalling.”

Turabi, 72, has been on an “Islamic hunger strike” feeding on dates and water for almost two weeks, which Mahdi said had made his blood pressure drop because of a lack of salt.

She added his family had not been able to visit him for more than 17 days and they had received the information from a prisoner who was released the day before.

“The prison authorities said to us that they would move him to hospital when and if their doctor ordered it,” she added. “But they said they had been giving him saline solution to push his blood pressure back up.”

Turabi, a key figure in the Islamist government set up by Bashir after a coup in 1989, was arrested in 2001 after signing a controversial deal with a southern rebel movement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). He was released in October 2003 but rearrested in March.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said last week the law stated after three months, prisoners had to be released or charged. He added Turabi would most likely be released very soon, without charge.