Jailed Sudanese Islamist Turabi moved to house arrest

KHARTOUM, April 28 (Reuters) – Sudanese opposition Islamist Hassan al-Turabi was moved to house arrest from prison on Thursday, his son said.

Turabi was sent to Kobar prison more than a year ago after his party was accused of plotting a coup to overthrow his former ally President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. He has not been formally charged.

“He was moved to a security house in Kafouri,” Turabi’s son Siddiq al-Turabi told Reuters, referring to a house owned by state security in an uptown area of the capital.

He is now under house arrest and his son said only Turabi’s wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, had been allowed to see him.

Turabi’s opposition Popular Congress Party was suspended after the alleged coup at the end of March last year. Turabi has remained in detention under emergency laws ever since.

His family earlier this month accused state security of posing as medical staff and giving him a meningitis vaccination which they said could endanger the health of the 73-year-old. Officials said Turabi had agreed to have the injection.

Turabi was the former ideologue of Bashir, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1989. But the two parted ways after a power struggle in 2001. Turabi was then detained for about two years.

Government officials say Turabi will likely be released after emergency law is lifted in Khartoum, which is expected once a new constitution has been agreed.

Sudan signed a peace deal in January to end more than two decades of civil war in its south. Under the deal a new government of national unity is to be formed, and power and wealth will be shared.

Talks to draft the new constitution are expected to begin on Saturday and last for six weeks.