January 18, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Islamist opposition leader Hassan Al-Turabi has been planning to carry out sabotage and assassinations prompting the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to move on him and take him into custody, a senior official in the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) said today.
Sudan’s Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi (Reuters)
Turabi was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday at his home by heavily armed security officers. More than half a dozen senior officials from his Popular Congress Party (PCP) were detained as well.
The Sudanese Media Center (SMC) website which is widely believed to be run by the NISS said yesterday that the move was in light of new information retrieved from Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) members captured in West Darfur last week.
But the NCP deputy chairman Nafie Ali Nafie who is also presidential assistant appeared to provide a different account.
Quoted by Sudan official news agency (SUNA), the NCP official said that Turabi wanted to disrupt security and initiate a plan aimed at toppling the government.
Nafie said that the opposition wants to stir the public by exploiting the economic conditions facing the country so they can take the street and carry out assassinations according to information gathered by pertinent authorities.
He said that it would be irresponsible on the government’s part to let this scheme proceed without taking action.
Asked whether the assassination plot was targeting certain officials, his response was that the information will become clear in later stages.
However Nafie declined to say whether charges will be pressed against Turabi and other PCP figures based on the plot allegedly uncovered.
The presidential assistant made no mention of JEM links as carried by SMC website yesterday.
Similar accusations were leveled by the authorities in 2007 against the then Umma Reform and Renewal Party (URRP) chief Mubarak Al-Fadil. He was released three months later when the information in the possession of NISS about the coup attempt turned out to be bogus.
Turabi was the mastermind behind the 1989 coup staged by president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir. But the pair fell out following the introduction of a bill to limit the president’s powers in 1999, a move which the president resisted by dissolving parliament and declaring a state of emergency.
He was in an out of jail the whole time after splitting ranks with Bashir over accusations ranging from staging a coup attempt to standing behind the rebellion that broke out in Darfur.
JEM has managed to launch a daring attack in May 2008 that reached the outskirts of the capital before being repelled by government.
In early 2009 he was arrested for saying that Bashir should surrender himself to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges.
On Monday, Al-Turabi gave an interview to Agence France Presse (AFP) and warned that street protests similar to the ones that occurred in Tunisia could happen in Sudan if president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir failed to share power.
It is still believed bu his family and supporters that these remarks were behind his arrest.
The Innercitypress website said it asked Sudan ambassador to the United Nations Daffa-Alla Elhag Ali Osman about Turabi’s arrest.
“Let me ask you a question,” Sudan’s Ambassador replied, blaming the arrest on a call for Tunisia like demonstrations, Innercitypress quoted him as saying.
(ST)