VZCZCXRO9149
OO RUEHGI RUEHMA RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #1709/01 3301319
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 251319Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2401
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/CJTF HOA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001709 
 
DEPT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, SE WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG, 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: DEATH SENTENCE APPEALS REFUSED IN FLAWED TRIAL FOR MURDER 
OF SUDANESE JOURNALIST 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Nine defendants convicted of murdering a Sudanese 
journalist in 2006 retain one final appeal before they face 
execution, according to UNMIS Human Rights and the defendants' 
lawyer, Kamal Omer.  The murder of Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed 
resulted in a politically-driven investigation and a highly-flawed 
trial.  Since the sentencing of the nine defendants in November 
2007, Sudanese authorities have dismissed three appeals, acting in 
the interim to commute the death sentence of only one of them, a 17 
year old minor.  A detainees in the case, who was released without 
being charged, related how authorities had employed torture to 
extract confessions.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Poloff spoke with Kamal Omer, a lawyer and political 
activist who has served as pro-bono legal counsel for the nine 
defendants since their arrest in 2006.  Only one route of appeal 
remains for the defendants.   The Sudanese justice system rejected 
the group's third appeal in October, and Omer remains concerned that 
the final appeal, which costs approximately US$1,200 and is 
scheduled   be heard before Sudan's Constitutional Court, will be 
similarly dismissed.  In accordance with the 2005 Interim National 
Constitution (INC), the Constitutional Court must issue a final and 
binding decision examining the process from beginning to end, either 
verifying the decision or ordering the trials recommence from the 
beginning.  Should the decision be verified, the court will forward 
its decision to President Omar el-Bashir, who must confirm the 
sentences in order for authorities to execute the nine defendants. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Active within the opposition People's Congress Party of 
Islamist-cum-federalist Hassan al-Turabi, Omer said he hopes that 
international human rights organizations continue to press the 
Government of Sudan for increased transparency in its justice 
system.  Hoping to bring to light the numerous shortfalls of the 
prosecution's case, Omer listed the issues he intends to present at 
the upcoming appeal: suspects were immediately tortured following 
arrest; confessions were obtained using torture; no witnesses 
testified at the trial; and no trial evidence was verified as having 
been used in the commission of the crime.  (Note: All of Omer's 
assertions have been independently confirmed by UNMIS Human Rights. 
End note.) 
 
¶4. (SBU) Detained   in September 2006, Ali Mohamed Sabaa told poloff 
that during his year-long imprisonment, authorities vacillated 
between "bad-cop" and "good-cop" roles, at times suspending him by 
his wrists and beating the soles of his feet, and at other times 
offering him cash, a passport and asylum if he confessed.  Active 
within the political movement of exiled Darfur rebel leader 
Abdulwahid al-Nur, Sabaa traveled with the movement to Abuja in 2005 
for Darfur peace negotiations, and directly accused the government 
of using the crime as a pretext to arrest politically-active 
Darfuris in Khartoum.  After an imprisonment that included six 
months in solitary confinement at Sudanese National Intelligence and 
Security Services' (NISS) special section for political detainees at 
Kober Prison, Sabaa has remained politically-active, but said he 
fears future arrests.  Sabaa was pessimistic as to the fate of his 
former fellow detainees, saying that the authorities had set up the 
case to frame the least educated people they detained, and then 
deceived them with offers of cash for their families. "They were 
forced to say this case occurred. They believed they would be 
released after they signed a confession," Sabaa said. 
 
---------- 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) On September 5, 2006, a group of masked assailants 
kidnapped Mohamed Taha, the editor-in-chief of Al Wafaq newspaper, 
from his home in Khartoum; his decapitated body was found the 
following day south of the city.  The murder shocked the country, 
drawing parallels to Al Qaeda killings in Iraq. The editor had faced 
criminal charges in May 2005 after republishing an article regarding 
the origins of the Prophet Mohamed, and a court had ordered Al Wafaq 
to suspend publication for three months. The editor had also angered 
many Darfuris after publishing articles criticizing the morals of 
Darfuri women.  Following the editor's murder, a Khartoum court 
barred newspapers from reporting on the criminal investigation; this 
ban continued throughout the trial as well. 
 
¶6. (SBU) More than 70 people were detained during the five-month 
investigation. Nineteen individuals, including two women, were 
ultimately charged in connection with the murder. In August 2007, 
nine of the defendants were acquitted for lack of evidence, and ten 
were convicted and sentenced to death in November 2007.  The first 
appeal of the verdict was denied in March 2008. The second appeal of 
the verdict resulted only in the reduction of one death sentence, 
 
KHARTOUM 00001709  002 OF 002 
 
 
that of a 17 year-old defendant, in August, and the Supreme Court of 
Sudan denied the third appeal of the verdict in October. 
 
¶7. (SBU) One of the defendants sentenced to death for participation 
in the crime is a former local guard of the U.S. Embassy, Adam 
Ibrahim al Haj.  During the investigation and subsequent trial, 
local Embassy investigators and guards presented statements to the 
court on behalf of the detained employee, who was on duty when the 
crime allegedly took place. The employee told Embassy investigators 
that he had been instructed to confess, and to claim that he had 
used an Embassy vehicle during the crime (which he refused to do, 
telling them that guards were not permitted to drive Embassy 
vehicles.) 
 
¶8. (SBU) Comment: The high-profile murder of a controversial 
journalist provided Sudanese authorities with an excellent 
opportunity to display the sort of judicial integrity that is 
guaranteed in the INC.  However, the botched prosecution of the 
defendants casts serious doubt onto whether the ruling NCP regime 
has the will not to revert to the brutal and kangaroo court tactics 
that have long been standard Sudanese judicial operating procedure. 
An independent justice system would not tolerate the lack of 
credible evidence and witnesses, an official gag order on 
journalists covering the trial, nor a perfunctory appeals system. 
This gives Sudanese and foreigners alike very little confidence that 
any of those arrested for crimes in Sudan are actually guilty. An 
exception, in our view, is the ongoing trial of the five Sudanese 
defendants accused in the January 1, 2008 murders of USAID employee 
John Granville and his driver, Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama. Based on 
the evidence we have seen and that has been presented so far in 
court, we believe those charged are receiving a fair trial. 
However, while me some of those  convicted of the 2006 murder of 
journalist Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed may in fact be guilty, the 
process used in this case raises serious concerns about the Sudanese 
justice system. 
 
FERNANDEZ