Sudan court indicts 72 for coup attempt

KHARTOUM, March 24 (Reuters) – A Sudanese court has indicted 72 men, including members of the opposition Islamist Popular Congress (PCP) party, for involvement in an attempted coup, party officials and one of their lawyers said on Thursday.

The group’s lead lawyer, Kamal Omar, told Reuters the correct court procedures were not followed and the proceedings were flawed. He called it a “political hearing”.

But Sudan’s attorney-general, Mohamed Farid, said it was a fair hearing.

The preliminary hearing for 78 men, including 6 in absentia, began in December and a Khartoum court decided last week there was enough evidence for 72 of the men to go to trial charged with attempting a coup in September last year, PCP officials said.

“They have decided that there is a case against these 72 men who are accused of planning a coup d’etat,” Hassan Abdallah Ahmed, the deputy leader of the PCP told Reuters. “They have been indicted,” he added.

If convicted, the men could face the death penalty, but they are more likely to be jailed and have their property confiscated, Ahmed said. Those not charged were released, but a few had since been detained again, he said.

He said not all the accused were members of the PCP, led by Islamist Hassan al-Turabi, who was jailed in April last year after a similar accusation that the movement was planning to overthrow the government. Turabi is not being tried, but remains in jail.

The party, suspended in April last year, denies the charges.

“Not so many of them are members of the party — maybe 15-20 of them,” Ahmed said. “The others are mostly boys from Darfur.”

A senior PCP member, Haj Adam, is being tried in absentia. Party officials said he fled the country to the Eritrean capital Asmara, where many Sudanese opposition politicians live.

The Khartoum government has been fighting since early 2003 a rebellion in its remote western region of Darfur, where tens of thousands have been killed and thousands die every month in camps for the near 2 million people who have fled their homes.

Rights groups complain the authorities randomly detain and torture men from Darfur accusing them of belonging to rebel groups.

Lawyer Omar said the hearing had been a farce, adding every man who had signed the 38 confessions received by state security forces told the court the confessions were extracted under torture and death threats.

“They said they had been hung from fans on the ceiling, beaten, and told they would be killed if they did not confess,” Omar said. “There were two killed by torture,” he said.

Reuters had seen the death certificate of Shamseddin Idriss who the PCP said had been killed by torture. It showed broken limbs and a blow to the head.

Sudan had said an investigation would be launched into the death, but the results have yet to be made public.

Sudanese Attorney-General Farid said the court had been fair and had proven that the confessions had not been extracted using torture.

“The proceedings were run in a fair and correct way,” he said in comments read to Reuters by a spokesman. “We gave them the full chance to defend their cases.”

Omar said the full trial would begin on April 2.