Dozens of Sudanese security elements sentenced to death by hanging
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - In the first of its kind, a Sudanese court has tried and sentenced dozens of security officers to death in a highly publicised trial, which a few years ago would have been unimaginable.
A Central Omdurman Court on Monday sentenced 29 security officers to death after finding them guilty of torturing a teacher to death in eastern Sudan during the uprising that toppled President Omar Bashir in April 2019.
Chief Advocate Omar Abdul Atti, the Chief of the Defence Board, told the press after the announcement of the verdicts, that the court which tried dozens of security officers who allegedly tortured and killed Ahmed Khair, secured all due processes of law and ordinary procedures and that the government did not resort to summary or revolutionary trials.
Eight accused persons were set free while two would each serve 2 years in jail.
Khair, a secondary school teacher from eastern Sudan’s Kasala state, was tortured to death in January, 2019 during interrogations and confession extraction after he was arrested for taking part in the protests.
He was in detention in Khasm Girba, a town in the state of Kassala, when dozens of security members systematically beat him, used brutal insertion of objects into his body and kicked him.
“It would have been understandable even if they were beating him while he was resisting or if it was a battle or war zone, but he was in their custody,” Atti lamented.
The trial took place in an ordinary court under Judge Al Sadig Abdul Rahman al Faki.
The teacher's case has received wide condemnation from Sudanese because of his profession and the type of brutality used by the interrogators.
The court started sitting on 22 August and conducted over 20 sessions for the trial.
Chief Advocate Atti said the board would appeal against the release of some of the accused persons and lenient sentences.
The Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) used to be an institution that was fully immune from questioning or trial. The court asked NISS command to revoke their immunity for their trial before a regular, not military or martial court, which it did.
The ruling of the court could still be appealed.
-0- PANA MO/MA 30Dec2019
