Official: Sudanese government jails Janjaweed leader for three years

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct 20, 2004 (AP) — Under international pressure to crack down on Arab militiamen blamed for attacking African villagers in Darfur, a Sudanese official said Wednesday that authorities here have handed down their first known conviction against a Janjaweed leader, jailing him for three years.

Six Sudanese men stand in the dock in a court in Nyala September 30, 2004, accused of belonging to the Janjaweed. The Arab militia, who killed 24 people at Haluf, in north Nyala, in the southern Darfur region last October.

Mohammed Barbary Ahab el-Nabi, an Awalad Zeid tribal leader in the western town of el-Geneina, was sentenced last week after being found guilty of “looting cows and burning properties” in the village of Dory Monkish, said Abdel Moniem Taha, the director of human rights at the Sudanese Justice Ministry.

Taha told The Associated Press that police arrested el-Nabi on Oct. 4 and that an el-Geneina judge sentenced him on Oct. 14 to three years jail and fined him 10 million Sudanese pounds (US$39,000, A?31,000). El-Nabi has been given 15 days to appeal, but it was not immediately clear if he had lodged an appeal yet.

Taha said el-Nabi was the first known Janjaweed leader to be arrested and brought to justice.

Sudanese authorities, under pressure to end 18 months of violence in Darfur that has killed tens of thousands and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, have said previously that they have jailed Janjaweed members responsible for attacks on African villagers.

But human rights groups have argued that those sentenced were only petty criminals, not militiamen.

Sudanese officials have complained that police could not track down alleged Janjaweed elements for several reasons, including the lack of security in Darfur and their restricted ability to move freely in the area, which is the size of France, because of a rarely adhered to April cease-fire agreement.

A U.N. Security Council resolution on Sudan passed Sept. 18 called on the Sudanese government to bring to justice “Janjaweed leaders responsible for human rights and international humanitarian law violations in Darfur.”

U.N. officials in Sudan were not immediately available for comment on the sentencing.

Taha said another court earlier this month in southern Darfur convicted five men, including a 68-year-old Arab tribesman and his two sons, one of whom was a policeman, of attacking the village of Halofi last year and killing 23 people.

The official said the judge sentenced several of the men to death and jailed others, but it was unclear if all the five faced the death penalty or if they have lodged appeals.

Police are also investigating the recent rape of five girls aged between 11 and 16 in Hagar Laban, a village in western Darfur near the border with Chad.

“We are serious in dealing with any case and with any person including the members of the armed forces in case of their involvement in such acts, ” Taha said.

Sudan’s government has denied widespread allegations that it backs the Janjaweed, an Arab militia accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur’s people of African origin. The rebels groups come from the African community.