OWN CORRESPONDENT, Khartoum | Thursday
FIVE Sudanese had their limbs amputated last month in a punishment the Islamist government here has imposed only once before in its 12 years in power, say a human rights group and diplomats.
The five men, convicted of armed robbery, each had their right hand and left foot cut off at Khartoum’s Kober prison, where another 19 prisoners were awaiting the same fate, the sources said.
Western diplomats in Khartoum first informed journalists of the amputations. Officials at the London-based Sudan Victims of Torture Group (SVTG) said a doctor oversaw the surgical limb removals – information he says was not reported in the local media because of widespread popular opposition to such punishment.
SVTG said the five criminals were from Darfour in western Sudan and identified them as Ibrahim Gumai, Omer Salim, Salih Omer, Abakar Jalab and Dafa Alla Mowloudi.
One convict had his limbs amputated last year, the only other time the laws had been carried out to the letter since President Omar el-Beshir seized power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989.
The sentence for armed robbery, according to Sudan’s 1991 Criminal Act, is cross amputation (right hand and left foot). SVTG said in an earlier press release, which received little publicity, that it was concerned the five prisoners had not received a fair trial and that the government was resuming the practice of amputations.
The last period when amputations were common was in 1983 and 1984, when then president Jaafar Nimeiri allied himself with the Islamists, shortly before he was ousted in a popular uprising.
However, SVTG said it did not expect the government to go through with the amputations of the 19 other prisoners amid opposition at home and from foreign governments and human rights groups abroad.
SVTG said it had appealed to individual governments and the international community to press Sudan to stop amputations and observe its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. – AFP