KHARTOUM, 15 August 2007 — Lawyers will be allowed to visit a detained Sudanese opposition leader who is accused of trying to overthrow the government, the state-owned Sudanese Media Center said yesterday. His family visited Mubarak Fadil, head of the opposition Ummah Renewal and Reform party, this week after he was arrested at gunpoint at his home last month and accused of coordinating the overthrow attempt.
“Mubarak Fadil — accused of being the mastermind of the attempt — is allowed to see his family,” SMC said. “Prosecutor General Salah Abu Zaid told (SMC) that the accused are allowed to see their lawyers as well.” Officials from Fadil’s party said that should happen within a few days.
Sudan’s Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi has said charges were being brought against 25 people, including “calling for resistance (to) the power structure through use of violence or criminal force, inciting war against the state and destruction of the constitutional system.”
Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak in eastern Sudan, which has spread due to devastating floods across the region, has killed 49 people and affected some 710 others, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said yesterday. Last year, a cholera outbreak throughout Sudan killed 700 people and affected 25,000. It was the first time in many years the water-borne disease had been reported in Africa’s largest country.
WHO official Mohamed Abder Rab said all the recent cases had been reported in the eastern Gedaref state and Kassala town, with the first reported on April 19. “The situation in Gedaref is not yet under control... Flooding is spreading the water-borne disease,” Rab told Reuters before traveling to the east to verify conditions in the region hit by the worst flooding in living memory in Sudan.
