Former Speaker al-Turabi arrested

Former Sudanese parliamentary speaker and erstwhile ally of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Hassan al-Turabi, was arrested on 21 February, along with many of Turabi's aides, a senior Sudanese official confirmed to IRIN on Thursday.

The arrest follows the signing on Sunday of a "memorandum of understanding" between Turabi and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang, which has been fighting Sudan's leaders for the past 17 years.

The official told IRIN that Turabi "has been arrested under the national security act, for endangering the country's national security." He added that many of Turabi's aides have also been arrested and detentions "are still going on". Security forces reportedly detained at least 20 members of Turabi's Popular National Congress (PNC) party in different parts of the country, the Associated Press quoted a retired army general, Mohammed Amin al-Khalifa, as saying. Khalifa, who said he was in hiding, told AP that Turabi had been transferred to the maximum security Kober prison, east of Khartoum.

Armed police were deployed around the headquarters of the PNC, as well as the offices of the pro-Turabi Rai al-Shaab newspaper, which did not publish on Thursday, AP reported.

No formal charges against Turabi and his aides have been announced, but the men are expected to be brought to court soon, the official told IRIN.

Turabi, the former head of the militant National Islamic Front (NIF), was a close ally of President Bashir and is credited with being the mastermind of the 1989 military coup that brought Bashir to power.

The two men had a falling out in December 1999 when Bashir dismissed Turabi as parliamentary speaker. Eight months later Turabi set up the PNC and has since become one of the government's harshest critics.

Meanwhile, Sudanese radio, monitored by the BBC, reported that Sudanese Information Minster Ghazi Salah-al-Din had described the agreement between the SPLA and Turabi "as a declaration of a political alliance to fight the government, an alliance which does not use legalized methods".

The report quoted the minister as saying said that any group dealing with the SPLA "to set up a strategic alliance" would be treated in the same manner as Turabi's movement.

(See: IRIN
focus on Turabi's arrest - "A relationship gone sour")