KHARTOUM, 9 September 2004 — Sudan’s security forces have arrested more than a dozen Islamists from the party of detained opposition leader Hassan Turabi, accusing them of subversion and arms trafficking with an unnamed neighboring country.
In overnight raids, agents seized Popular Congress party officials to crack down on the Khartoum government’s rivals, party sources said yesterday.
Official Omdurman radio broadcast a statement from the Sudanese intelligence services saying those arrested were accused of “subversion” and of buying arms from a neighboring country, which was not identified.
Sudan has bad relations with neighboring Eritrea, which it has several times accused of plotting with the Sudanese opposition.
Muhammad Hassan Amin, a member of the party’s general secretariat, said that 14 party members were detained overnight, including three of the national leadership.
He named these as Adam Tahir Hamdun, a former commerce minister, Muhammad Abdel Maaruf, former deputy defense minister, and Ibrahim Abdel Hafiz, a former deputy governor.
Most of the 14 seized had been among 49 detainees who had been released only in late July, said Amin, adding that the movement “neither possessed any weapons nor called for violence.”
According to witnesses, police, soldiers and security forces took positions at numerous checkpoints at crossroads and traffic lights, stopped and closely searched every passing vehicle.
