Jailed Sudanese opposition leader ends hunger strike

KHARTOUM, July 17 (AFP) — Sudan’s jailed Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and dozens of other prisoners have ended a two-week hunger strike staged to protest their detention without trial, his wife said Saturday.

Wisal al-Mahdi also told AFP that she and other family members had been allowed to visit Turabi for the first time in nearly three weeks.

She quoted her husband as saying that the detainees had conditionally agreed to end their strike on Thursday.

Mahdi said Turabi declined to specify the conditions but that she hoped they included the detainees’ release.

Twelve detainees were freed last week in what officials said was part of a periodic “revision” of individual cases, though parliamentary sources said it was because of their deteriorating health as a result of the hunger strike, begun on June 30.

Turabi, a one-time mentor of President Omar al-Beshir, is awaiting trial on a raft of offences against the state including incitement to sedition, sabotage and undermining the regime.

The Popular Congress leader, who was detained in late March amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathisers of a rebellion by indigenous minorities in the war-torn western region of Darfur, had been at liberty for only six months since being freed from three years of house arrest last year.

The opposition leader has been increasingly critical of the scorched earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur, where the United Nations says at least 10,000 have been killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless by clashes between the rebels and government-backed Arab militias.

Mahdi, a member of the Islamists’ leadership, said she and other family members visited Turabi in Kober prison on Friday for two hours.

“The sheikh is in good health and has told us that he has never fallen ill or fainted or been bitten by a rat,” Mahdi said, adding that Turabi laughed when told of such rumours.