Sudan’s foreign police release former JEM V-P

Ibrahim El Maaz Deng, a former leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), was released from El Huda prison in Omdurman on Sunday, after Dr Ali El Haj, Secretary-General of the Popular Congress Party, signed his bail at the office of the Immigration and Foreigners Department in Khartoum.

Deng’s son confirmed the Radio Dabanga that his father was released and is now free and at his home in El Haj Yousef in Khartoum North.

Former Vice-President of the JEM, Deng and six of his colleagues were captured in West Darfur in 2010. They were tried in Khartoum in 2011 by a special Terrorism Court in a process that the JEM branded as unfair.

He spent seven years incarcerated in Khartoum’s notorious Kober Prison after his arrest as a member of the anti-regime armed movements. He was released in October 2017, but immediately faced immigration complications which made him unable to adjust his status in terms of nationality and identity papers, and subject to deportation.

After his release from Kober, Deng was transferred the custody of Sudan’s Foreign Police. Deng is originally from what is now South Sudan, however as South Sudan obtained its independence in July 2011 during the time he was imprisoned, he was stripped of his nationality and effectively stateless. He is married to two Sudanese woman and has Sudanese children with them.