Coup plotters planned to kill at least 38 officials: Sudanese minister

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Sep 25, 2004 (AP) — Sudanese authorities accused an opposition party Saturday of plotting to abduct and kill more than three dozen senior government officials and blow up key sites in the capital, where the army was out in force.

Two army officers and an unspecified number of privates also were arrested for cooperating with plotters of a coup attempt that was to begin unfolding at 2 p.m. local time Friday, according to the government’s Sudan Media Center.

“The officers, whose mission was to leak as much weapons and ammunition to the plotters as possible, were immediately arrested,” according to the agency.

Heavily armed soldiers and military police were posted at intersections throughout the capital Saturday and around military and government installations. Pedestrians crossing bridges were questioned and subject to body searches. In parts of the capital, soldiers crouched in newly dug trenches, weapons in hand.

Information Minister Zahawe Ibrahim Malik said the soldiers involved in the coup plot included “some in active service and some in retirement.” They would stand trial, he said in a statement after an emergency Cabinet meeting Saturday at the Council of Ministers’ heavily guarded headquarters overlooking the Nile.

“They were planning to control the state-run radio, the TV and the headquarters of the Council of Ministers, and then arrest all the ministers and work to overthrow the government,” Malik said.

President Omar el-Bashir did not attend the Cabinet meeting, instead proceeding with a previously scheduled plan to inaugurate a public service project in the northern outskirts of Khartoum.

The Sudan Media Center quoted Sudanese security authorities as saying the opposition Popular Congress Party, accused of at least two separate coup plots this year, was behind the foiled plot.

It said the plotters intended to abduct and kill at least 30 government leaders and blow up an unspecified number of vital installations in Khartoum, the capital. Malik did not specify what, if any, sites the plotters allegedly planned to blow up and said only that ministers were to be targets of arrest.

“The concerned security organs have arrested most of the main leaders and the grass-root participants in the planning, coordination and implementation of the plot,” the Sudan Media Center reported. It said the search was continuing for the leader of the operation, Al-Hajj Adam Yusuf, a former agriculture minister.

Malik said he could not give a figure for arrests thus far because they were continuing and included what he called “precautionary arrests.”

Sudan ‘s Interior Minister, Gen. Abdul Raheem Mohamed Hussein, also told state-run Omdurman radio that security forces seized “a huge quantity of arms and ammunition” Saturday morning in a northern suburb of Khartoum.

The radio quoted the minister as saying items seized included 300 Kalashnikov rifles plus ammunition, 27 mortars and numerous rocket propelled grenades.

Hussein called the raid “a huge victory” against the coup collaborators.

Malik, the government spokesman, accused Eritrea of playing a role in supplying the arms the government has seized during the past 10 days.

“We would like to pinpoint the Eritrean role … and we will prove this to the world in a way that will preserve the integrity and territorial safety of Sudan ,” he said, without elaborating.

On Sept. 8, police arrested more than 30 Popular Congress Party members in relation to a separate alleged coup plot. A prominent party member said Sept. 19 that he was quitting the party because it was clear it was behind the attempt to overthrow the government of President Omar el-Bashir.

Congress leader HassanTurabi, a former close associate of el-Bashir, has been in detention since earlier this year after police rounded up party members following another alleged coup plot.

News of the latest alleged coup plots came as international pressure has been growing on Sudan to end violence in its western Darfur region between non-Arab villagers and Arab militias allegedly backed by the Khartoum government. An estimated 50,000 people have died as a result of the 19-month conflict.

Last weekend, the U.N. Security Council resolved to consider sanctions against Sudan ‘s oil industry if the government did not act quickly to stop the violence.