From sudaneseonline.com
Sudan: Govt Arrests Top Bashir Critic
By [unknown placeholder $article.art_field1$]
May 17, 2010 - 8:38:33 AM
Sudan: Govt Arrests Top Bashir Critic
17 May 2010
undefined
undefined
undefined
undefined
The government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum has again arrested Bashir's former ally, the Islamist leader, Hassan al-Turabi.
The Sudan Tribune reports from Khartoum that the government accused Turabi of "stirring up hatred, disseminating malicious lies and abuse of Sudan�s foreign relations."
The online news service said the arrest, on Saturday, came as the government closed Ray Alsha�ab, a newspaper close to Turabi's Popular Congress Party (PCP), after it published a report saying Iran had erected a weapons factory in Sudan to supply Islamic insurgents in Africa and the Middle East.
The Tribune reported an information ministry official, Rabie Abdelati, as saying on television: "I do not see any separation between the arrest of the Secretary-General of the Popular Congress Party, Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi and the closure of Ray Alsha�ab."
Rabie likened the newspaper's "unjust and false accusations" to those which led to a United States missile strike on a pharmaceutical factory in August 1998. The U.S. suggested at the time that the factory had been housing chemical weapons.
Initially an ally after Bashir came to power in a coup in 1989, Turabi fell out with the military leader 10 years later. The Tribune reported that he has been detained five times since the fall-out. He has supported the execution of an arrest warrant for Bashir issued by the International Criminal Court.
© Copyright by sudaneseonline.com