Sudan Appeal Court upholds death penalty for SPLM-N leaders

The Court of Appeal in Sinja, Sennar locality, eastern Sudan, today upheld the death penalties in absentia for the chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), Malik Agar, SPLM-N Secretary-General, Yasir Arman, and 15 other leaders of the movement. The judgment is to be published in all Sudanese sea-, land-, and airports. The Appeal Court also ordered the confiscation of SPLM-N properties in Damazin, the capital of the Blue Nile State, where Malik Agar, former elected governor of the state, resided, before the town was attacked by government forces in September 2011. The court ruling came after ​​the defence team had appealed against the judgment of the Court of First Instance last March of 47 SPLM-N members in a case that became known in the media as “the court case of the Blue Nile events”. El Tijani Hassan, a lawyer of the defence team, told Radio Dabanga that a new appeal would be raised at the Supreme Court in Khartoum against the death sentences and the confiscation of the properties. Hassan said that 52 SPLM-N members have been convicted so far, and 69 were acquitted. “All spent between one year and three-and-a-half years in prison before they were tried.” File photo: Yasir Arman (Reuters) Related:SPLM-N denounces Sudan’s Sinja court verdicts (17 March 2014) Death sentences for SPLM-N leaders in Sudan (13 March 2014) Witnesses defend SPLM-N suspects in Sudan’s Sinja court (14 February 2014)