KHARTOUM, 25 March 2005 — 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 yesterday.
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”.
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 Hassan Turabi. 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.
Meanwhile, the rift between United Nations members over how to make Khartoum accountable for crimes committed in the war-torn Darfur region makes the prospect of further violence more likely, rebels and commentators warned yesterday.
The UN Security Council yesterday postponed until next week action on a draft resolution that would refer the killing in Darfur to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Nations are at odds over how to tackle the separate crisis in Darfur, where an estimated 180,000 people have died since a rebel uprising against the government broke out more than two years ago.
France wants to refer the atrocities blamed on the Sudanese government in Darfur to the ICC, but Washington fiercely opposes the world body and wants to create a special tribunal in Tanzania.
