Sudanese security files charges against abductors of French mineworker

February 6, 2018 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) said charges have been filed against the armed group who abducted a French national in Chad and brought him to Darfur.

Late last March, Thierry Frezier, 60, an employee of a French mining company operating in Chad was abducted near the border with Sudan’s Darfur region and has been taken into Sudan.

On May 7, the NISS announced it has freed the French national in an operation that was carried out in close coordination with Paris and N’Djamena.

An informed security source told the semi-official Sudan Media Center (SMC) the NISS filed criminal charges against the perpetrators at the State Security Prosecution Office under articles 21(participation in crime), 65 (criminal and terrorist organizations) and 162 (Kidnapping) of the 1991Penal Code.

He added further charges were also filed under articles 5 and 6 of the 2001 Counter-Terrorism Act.

On November 22, 2009, two French aid workers were kidnapped at Birao town in the Central African Republic (CAR) and had been taken to Darfur where they were freed three months later.

Also, in 2009 a Frenchman working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was abducted by a shadowy armed group called the Freedom Eagles of Africa, based in Darfur.

(ST)