'Sudan foils coup plot'
2004-09-25 08:32
Khartoum - Sudan foiled a plot by supporters of jailed Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi to overthrow the government on Friday, hours before they carried it out, the interior ministry said.
A statement said Popular Congress party elements had planned to execute the "conspiracy" in Khartoum at 14:00 (11:00 GMT) following weekly Muslim prayers.
It did not give details.
Nearly all those involved were arrested, except the alleged leader of the conspiracy, PC communications secretary Al-Haj Adam Youssef, the ministry said.
On September 8, PC sources said Sudanese security forces had arrested more than a dozen party militants, accusing them of subversion and arms trafficking with an unnamed neighbouring country.
They said agents seized PC officials to crack down on the Khartoum government's rivals, party sources said.
Official Omdurman radio broadcast at the time a statement from the Sudanese intelligence services saying those arrested were accused of "subversion" and of buying arms from a neighbouring country, which was not identified.
Sudan has bad relations with neighbouring Eritrea, which it has several times accused of plotting with the Sudanese opposition.
More than 30 members of the PC were arrested during raids in early September, and according to the interior ministry, information obtained from those detained led its personnel to uncover Friday's plot.
'Confessed in detail'
"Based on the information, your security forces moved and managed, with the help of God, to arrest the high command of this conspiracy," the interior ministry statement said.
It added that those arrested have "confessed in detail" and confirmed that they were prepared to "execute" their plans "at the set time".
They also identified Youssef as being their leader, the ministry said.
The ministry further called on the people to help security forces find Youssef by "offering information that would lead to the arrest of this fugitive criminal".
It warned that "harbouring him or withholding information that would lead to his arrest would be a crime punishable by law."
A one-time mentor of President Omar al-Beshir, Turabi, 74, is awaiting trial on a raft of offences against the state including incitement to sedition, sabotage and undermining the regime.
Turabi has been staging a hunger strike in protest at his house arrest at a remand home in Khartoum where he has been detained since his release from hospital last month.
He was first jailed in March amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathisers of the ethnic minority rebels in Darfur, where fighting has led to what the United Nations is calling the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.
Turabi had been increasingly critical of the scorched earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur, where the United Nations says up to 50 000 have been killed and about 1.4 million left homeless amid clashes between the rebels and state-sponsored Arab militia.