Khartoum police hold suspect in gang-rape of Sudan anti-graft politician’s daughter

In a press statement yesterday, the Khartoum state police announced the arrest of the main suspect in the rape of the daughter of a political leader in the Sudanese capital on Friday.

The investigation team used forensics laboratories, sniffer dogs, and “modern technical means” to find the attackers. They said they are continuing investigations under the supervision of the Public Prosecution and will eventually file an official complaint.

On Friday morning, the 15-year-old daughter of daughter of El Tayeb Osman, Secretary General of the suspended Empowerment Removal Committee (ERC*), was abducted from outside her family home in Khartoum. The assailants gang-raped her before leaving her in the street.

According to fellow ERC member Salah Manaa, “the rape happened because her father works for the committee”. Osman, who was secretary general of the ERC*, frozen after the military coup in October 2021, recently participated in the preparatory workshops organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association on the future work of the ERC. In a tweet on Friday, he blamed affiliates of the dissolved National Congress Party, founded by ousted President Omar Al Bashir, as well as the Popular Security Forces.

Women’s groups, including the Sudanese Women’s Alliance, the Women Against Injustice Campaign, and the Northern Kandakaat Block, staged a protest vigil in front of the Public Prosecution Office in Khartoum on Sunday to condemn the rape. They are concerned about “this dangerous development,” in regard to the political process.

A number of political parties and groups also condemned the assault in a statement over the weekend, including the Sudanese Congress Party, the National Umma Party, the Communist Party of Sudan, the SPLM-N Democratic Revolutionary Movement, the Justice and Equality Movement, as well as civil society organisations and resistance committees.

In early November last year, affiliates of the former regime of Al Bashir violently confronted members of the Sudanese Bar Association (SBA) steering committee at the Lawyers House in Khartoum in an attempt to take over the premises after the Supreme Court had ordered the reinstatement of the unions from the Al Bashir era.

* Empowerment (tamkin) is the term with which the ousted government of Omar Al Bashir supported its affiliates by granting them far-going privileges, including government functions, the setting-up of various companies, and tax exemptions. In the end of 2019, the government of Abdallah Hamdok established the Empowerment Removal Committee (ERC) with the aim to purge the country of the remnants of the Al Bashir regime. The committee’s full name is the Committee for Dismantling the June 30 1989 Regime, Removal of Empowerment and Corruption, and Recovering Public Funds. The work of the ERC was suspended, and a number of its members detained following the October 2021 military coup d’état.