Detained students accused of spying against Sudan

The security and intelligence apparatus filed charges against Bakhit Abdelkarim and Sabah El Zein Omar, members of the Independent Students' Congress, and transferred them to the State Security Prosecution on Sunday evening.

The students had been held in detention by the Sudanese security apparatus without any charges.

On Tuesday, Khaled Omar, the deputy head of the Sudanese Congress Party (SCP), told Radio Dabanga tha t the security service has filed charges against the two students under two criminal articles: undermining the constitutional order and spying against the state. Both are punishable by death if convicted.

Omar said that the accusations against Sabah El Zein Omar have been announced nearly two months after a raid on his house in Um Bada. He has been detained since 12 May – “in unknown circumstances because he has not been allowed to see his family nor his lawyer.”

The legal sector of the SCP has filed an appeal at the Constitutional Court against the security apparatus concerning the incommunicado detention of El Zein.

Murder charge

Omar pointed out that another student, Asim Omar Hassan of the University of Khartoum, still faces the charge of premeditated murder, which is punishable by death too.

Hassan was charged against the backdrop of the student protests at his university that started in the last week of April. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, one of the lawyers for Asim Omar Hassan said in May: “Asim did not know the reasons for his arrest and was not informed of the charges against him. He was promised to be released on bail, which later turned out to be misleading.”

“The justice system is selective and used only to settle cases against political opponents, in an ugly exploitation of the laws and its bodies of enforcement,” the opposition leader said.