Trial of youths accused of Sudan policeman’s murder to resume next month

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The trial of Mohamed Adam (better known by his nickname Tupac) and three other young men who were detained in January last year on charges of killing a police brigadier during anti-junta demonstrations in Khartoum, will resume next month.

Lawyer Eman Hasan, head of the defence team for murder accused Mohamed Adam, Musab El Shareef, Mohamed El Fateh, and Ahmed El Fateh, told Radio Dabanga yesterday that the court ruled that trial sessions will resume on February 12, after the court files returned from the Court of Appeal.

She said that the Court of Appeal has annulled the orders of the court judge against the director of Kober Prison, where the accused were tortured.

Hasan informed Radio Dabanga last week that the trial sessions were delayed because the case file, which also included the criminal case lodged against the director of Kober Prison, contained a mistake in the one of the dates.

The Court of Appeal, dealing with an appeal against the case of the prison director, first withheld the file, and then sent the complete file back to the court to correct the error.

She said that the delay “causes severe damage to the defendants and their families”.

The defence team submitted a request to the Court of Appeal to separate the case file of the young accused from the criminal proceedings against the director.

“The procedure against the director of Kober Prison is a separate judicial measure that does not require the request for the entire file,” she said. “This happened in bad faith.”

Trial history

Adam, Mohamed El Fateh, Musab El Shareef, and Ahmed El Fateh were detained on January 14 2022 on charges of killing a police officer and were subsequently subjected to torture in detention, including severe beatings and electric shocks and were denied medical aid.

The trial officially started in May but was postponed in June, when the protesters’ poor treatment inside Kober Prison sparked controversy, not only because of the torture the teenagers were subjected to but also because of inconsistencies in the police statements.

The authorities hold them responsible for the killing of Brig Bereima during the protests. Various Sudanese, however, reported on social media that Brig Ali Bereima was killed a week before. Others tweeted that the police officer was killed in the early morning of January 13, while the demonstrations started much later that day.

Lawyers also pointed to inconsistencies in the police statements issued on two consecutive days

In January, Eman Hasan told Radio Dabanga that the two detainees were questioned about the sources of funding behind the protests and about members of resistance committees, but not about the police brigadier they were accused of stabbing to death.

Adam’s lawyers and rights groups say that is where he was tortured and interrogated about the protest movement for three weeks, before eventually giving a false confession. He was suspended from his feet. He was subjected to continuous beatings, and he was deprived of water. The plaster was removed from his broken leg without medical supervision.

Resistance committees

In another criminal case against eight members of resistance committees in Khartoum charged with the murder of an intelligence officer, the court at the Institute of Judicial Sciences heard two witnesses from Military Intelligence on Monday.

Member of the defence team Mo’taz El Madani told Radio Dabanga that one of the witnesses said that he was beaten by demonstrators until he fainted. The second witness said that he saw one of the accused carrying a stick, but that he fled after his colleagues were beaten. The lawyer explained that the two testimonies have no weight because the two witnesses did not witness the crime. The court has decide