UPDATE ON POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM JEM ATTACK

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001675 DEPT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, SE WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG, AF/C, DRL NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL KPKO SOCI AU UNSC SU SUBJECT: UPDATE ON POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM JEM ATTACK ¶1. (SBU) Summary: While 42 detainees who participated in the May 10 attack of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) on Omdurman wait to see if their death sentences will be commuted, authorities are trying 87 more individuals in five special anti-terrorism courts. Lawyers and UNMIS Human Rights are alarmed and charge that the trials are deeply flawed, noting that that among those 87 are nine defendants under the age of 18. Advocates report that up to 500 Darfuris still remain unaccounted for, and released detainees have reported torture during their confinement. End Summary. -------------- 77 DETAINEES ON THE DOCKET, UP TO 500 MISSING -------------- ¶2. (SBU) After taking a break for Ramadan, Sudan's five special anti-terrorism courts returned to session in mid-October, charging 87 detainees with participating in the May 10 JEM attack on Omdurman. According to UNMIS Human Rights and lawyers with the independent Darfur Bar Association (DBA),authorities are trying 32 defendants at two courts in Khartoum, 42 defendants at two courts in Omdurman, and 13 defendants at one court in Khartoum North, in trials that are currently underway. Authorities have granted the detainees limited representation by lawyers offering their services pro-bono under the auspices of the DBA, but the Sudanese Ministry of Justice has restricted contact between the accused and their lawyers. Defense attoney Isa Abdulmoneim told poloff that prosecutors are requesting the death penalty for all 87 detainees, despite the fact that nine defendants are under 18 years of age, and two are mentally-ill. International observers have confirmed reports from defense lawyers that Sudanese prosecutors are basing their cases on the testimony of children detained following the attacks, and other findings produced three weeks after the attack and days after authorities displayed evidence at an open-air military fair. ¶3. (SBU) 42 detainees sentenced to death in August for participation in the attacks await execution in a prison in Port Sudan, but lawyers with the DBA and human rights advocates believe authorities may commute the sentences, d releasing the detainees rather than executing them in anticipation of negotiations with JEM. In one �0A;public speech, President Omar al-Bashir said he intended to grant the detainees a blanket amnesty, but no amnesty has been forthcoming as the regime considers when and if to play this card in its game with the Darfuri rebels over the nature of peace talks. For its work defending the detainees and assisting their families, the DBA has received a US$20,000 grant from the Democracy and Human Rights Fund to continue its pro-bono defense. ¶4. (SBU) Since the attacks, the non-governmental advocacy organization Khartoum Center for Human Rights and Environmental Development (KCHRED) has quietly conducted an investigative campaign to determine the number of "secret" detainees held in Sudanese prisons, according to Amir Suleiman, director of the KCHRED (protect). Suleiman estimates that between 450 and 500 individuals are currently in custody who were arrested in Omdurman in May, held without charges since then, and not named in any official documents related to the JEM attack and subsequent trials. Suleiman reported that following the attack, authorities rounded up thousands of Darfuris living in Khartoum and Omdurman. d Since then, hundreds, if not thousands of detainees have been surreptitiously released without charges. Through UNMIS Human Rights, KCHRED submitted the names of those still unaccounted for to the official GoS Advisory Council for Human Rights; while the GoS has yet to openly acknowledge that it is holding detainees incommunicado, Suleiman said the council does perform its due diligence in checking with the security services to determine which individuals are being held and by whom. "If they don't respond," he said, "then we know we are right." -------------- -------------- LAWYER TORTURED BY NISS, INTERVIEWED BY GHOSH HIMSELF -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Abdulshakur Hashem Dirag, a Darfuri public advocate living in Omdurman, spoke with Poloff of his prolonged detention and torture following the May 10 JEM attack. Heavily armed officers with the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) arrested Dirag on May 14 after ransacking his Omdurman office, on suspicion of ties to his wife's relatives, including Suleiman Sandal, deputy general commander of JEM, and Haggar, JEM field commander. Dirag recounted being beaten immediately upon his arrest, as he was thrown to the floor in the backseat of a waiting car, and stomped on by seated officers. During his interrogation, as security officers attempted to ascertain his connections to JEM, Dirag lost consciousness three times due to the beatings he sustained, and was KHARTOUM 00001675 002 OF 002 revived each time by a cold shower. Following two days of intense questioning and regular beatings, on Friday, May 16, NISS director Salah Ghosh personally interviewed Dirag in a seated, one-on-one meeting. According to Dirag, Ghosh smoked and drank coffee as he agitatedly asked, "What is the alternative plan?" Dirag replied, "I don't know the plan. How can I know the alternative?" After fifteen minutes of questioning, in which Dirag insisted that he was not active in JEM, and not in close contact with relatives active in JEM, Ghosh put his cigarette out in his coffee, stood up, and advised Dirag, "You have a chance. Do not miss it." In Ghosh's absence, NISS officers brought him outside and beat him, as he put it, "harder, more severely, longer than usual." ¶5. (SBU) Several weeks following Dirag's arrest, NISS also arrested his wife, and, as she was still nursing, their 9 month-old baby as well. Mother and child were held for nine weeks in a cell at Kober prison. Dirag himself attended an administrative hearing a week after his interview with Ghosh with six uniformed NISS officers who warned him, "If you don't cooperate, we will take you to where we usually do the shooting." Dirag continued to protest his innocence, and authorities freed him after 14 weeks in detention, and with no charges filed against him. Other detainees with whom poloff spoke had received similar treatment, and all reported that their fate is far from clear at the moment. Released on their own recognizance, detainees must report every two weeks to NISS headquarters in Khartoum to register their continued presence in the capital. ¶6. (SBU) Comment: By relying on children as witnesses in show trials, by rounding up hundreds of people based on their ethnicity, and by institutionalizing torture, the ruling regime has shown the dark side of maintaining power in Khartoum. While hundreds have now been released, many of them should never have been detained in the first place. On a slightly more positive note, after several stalled prosecutions of those accused of committing war crimes in Darfur, the Sudanese did manage to formally arrest, detain and try large numbers of people accused of engaging in acts of war on Sudanese territory. Whether such trials will be fair is very much open to question. Post will continue to monitor the situation of detainees and press Sudanese authorities for fair trials, proper treatment of prisoners, and the release of those still detained without charge. Post will also ask for the names of all those who have been detained. We do expect that the harshness or leniency of the treatment of detainees and of convicts is very much a political act which will track with the regime's efforts to woo Darfur rebel groups into a political process which could - at least superficially - bring about a comprehensive peace treaty for Darfur. FERNANDEZ