House arrest of opposition leader extended

Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir has extended the house arrest of the opposition-leader, Hasan Abdullah al-Turabi, for one year. No trial has taken place after 19 months in detention. "President Bashir, on the basis of Article 132 of the Constitution and Article 15 of the Law on Emergency and Public Security of 1998, has taken an extraordinary decision to extend the detention of Hasan Abdullah al-Turabi, for a renewable period of one year," AFP quoted the state-run Sudan News Agency as saying on Sunday. A day before the renewal, a lawyer acting on Turabi's behalf had announced that a judge of the constitutional court had ordered his release, news agencies reported. This report was subsequently denied by the court's chairman, stating that instructions to release Turabi had never been released. The decree was issued on the basis of state-of-emergency regulations - introduced in 1999 - and the Sudanese constitution. More than 20 lawyers drawn from various opposition groups were, however, questioning its legality, and had announced that they would consider a formal challenge, AFP reported. Turabi, the leader of opposition party Popular National Congress (PNC), and formerly the Speaker of the National Assembly, was arrested on 21 February 2001, on charges of undermining the constitution and waging war against the state. His arrest followed his signing of a memorandum with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, which stated that the agreed objectives - working jointly to resolve the crisis and establish a democratic system - would be pursued by peaceful means of popular resistance against the government's "authoritarian" methods. Two days later, the government brought charges against him. Bashir said at the time that Turabi would never be released unless he denounced the SPLM/A memo he had signed, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported. "It is alarming that even a politician as prominent as Dr Turabi, who has held high government office with the president and has been politically active for more than three decades, may be subjected to prolonged detention without trial, with no opportunity to disprove the charges against him in open court," said HRW in a March 2002 letter to the president. Turabi's continuing detention is widely considered to be part of an ongoing power struggle between himself and Bashir, whom he helped to seize power in a 1989 coup.