El Mahdi to address int’l community – faces capital charges on return to Sudan

El Sadig El Mahdi, chairman of the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) and head of the Sudan Call coalition says that he will address the UN Human Rights Council, the European Union, and the permanent members of the UN Security Council before returning to Sudan, where capital charges have been filed against him.

As reported by Radio Dabanga yesterday, El Mahdi intends to return to Sudan after an absence of about nine months, “to continue to the political arrangement for the convention of the eighth general conference of the party. He anticipates he will be arrested by the authorities as soon as he lands in the country.

El Mahdi said in his weekly newsletter on Monday that he had directed his party’s organs to form a national legal committee that would be able to defend him if he is brought to trial by those he described as the regime’s affiliates.

He said he has received calls from 10 key figures calling on him to return to the country.

Capital charges

In April this year, following El Mahdi’s election as chairman of the Sudan Call alliance, the State Security Prosecution service in Sudan instructed a complaint be filed against El Mahdi, “for dealing and coordinating with rebel armed movements to overthrow the regime.”

The Sudanese Security Services Centre said the move came after the National Intelligence and Service (NISS) submitted a petition to the State Security Prosecution against El Sadig El Mahdi and others.

The NISS was responding to threats of legal action against the alliance made by Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir since the conclusion of meetings of the Sudan Call in Paris in March.

The NISS said that the High Prosecutor General Advisor Motasim Abdallah filed charges on sabotaging of the constitutional order, staging war, calling for opposition to the public authority by violence, and spying on the country, which is punishable by death, in addition to articles 5 and 6 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.