200 Sudanese militiamen sentenced over Darfur bloodshed

KHARTOUM, July 23 (AFP) — A Sudanese media centre close to the government said Friday that 200 members of pro-government militias accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur had been tried and that some had received death sentences.

The report coincided with a demand by US President George W. Bush that Sudan halt the violence by the Janjaweed militias in the troubled western region and ensure that aid reaches the area.

The Sudanese Media Center (SMC), reporting from Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, quoted South Darfur Judiciary chairman Abdel Rahman Yagoub Ibrahim as saying a special tribunal had tried the militiamen through Tuesday.

The fighters from different tribes had been found them guilty of waging war, assault and armed robbery, Ibrahim was reported to have said, adding that some received the death penalty.

The media centre did not say how many were sentenced to death. It is not clear when the sentences will be carried out.

The media centre said the tribunal was chaired by Judge Mukhtar Ibrahim Adam and that he heard testimony from witnesses to a recent incident of banditry on the Nyala-Ed Deien highway allegedly carried out by nine of the Janjaweed.

It added that the tribunal would in the next two days begin the trial of another eight militiamen from various tribes accused of burning Geldy village to the south of Nyala. It did not say when the village was torched.

The report also comes a day after Washington presented a draft UN Security Council resolution authorizing sanctions on Sudan if it fails to prosecute Janjaweed leaders.

The US Congress later Thursday unanimously passed a non-binding resolution qualifying the atrocities committed in Darfur as “genocide” and calling on the White House to lead international efforts to intervene in the region.

More than 10,000 people have died and over a million have been displaced since rebel groups rose up against Khartoum in February 2003, claiming that the mainly black African region has been ignored by the Arab government.

The uprising prompted a bloody crackdown by Sudanese troops and the Janjaweed, which have carried out what aid and rights groups have called a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing.