Convicted killers of US diplomat in Sudan escape

KHARTOUM: Four Sudanese Islamists sentenced to hang for the New Year’’s Eve murder of a US diplomat and his driver in Khartoum have escaped from prison, security sources said on Friday. “The four men escaped yesterday (Thursday) from the Kober jail” in northern Khartoum, one source told a foreign news agency, on condition of anonymity. John Granville, 33, worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He and his driver, Abdel Rahman Abbas, 40, were shot dead in their car on January 1, 2008 as they returned from a New Year’’s Eve celebration. Sudanese authorities charged five young Islamists with the double murder, of whom four were handed the death penalty. The other man was sentenced to two years in prison for providing the arms and released in 2009. The four fugitives exchanged fire with officers manning a checkpoint, a police spokesman said on Friday. “They have exchanged fire with police in a checkpoint called Abu Halif, southwest of Omdurman,” General Mohammed Abdel Majid al-Tayeb said. “We followed them and we arrested the driver of the vehicle which the fugitives used to go out from Khartoum State,” he said, adding that the four were still being hunted. Two influential journalists with Al-Intibaha newspaper earlier this week urged President Omar al-Beshir to give the four an amnesty, after they had appeals turned town. Under Islamic law, the victims” families were asked in court whether they forgave the defendants, sought compensation or wanted to see the death penalty enforced. The death sentences were first handed down in June but suspended in August after Abbas’’s father forgave the men. The convictions were renewed in October when both families formally called for the sentence to be carried out. “Sudanese law does not provide for” a life sentence for murder, said Granville’’s mother, Jane Granville, in a statement. “Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I have to conclude that I am left with no other option. The death penalty is the only sentence that will protect others from those who took my beloved son’’s life.” Adil Abdelghani, the Granville family’’s Sudanese lawyer, said after news of the escape: “The authorities have assured us they will continue searching for them.” A US embassy spokesman said: “We have read those reports (of the escape) and are reviewing them.” One defendant, Mohaned Osman Yusef, shouted after the second sentencing in October: “You cannot kill a Muslim because he killed a Christian.” Yusef, a former military officer, also accused the United States of killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Islamic law condemns murder, regardless of the nationality or religion (of the victim),” the judge countered. Some Muslim scholars say a Muslim can be punished, but not executed, for killing a non-Muslim. The others on death row were Mohammed Mukawi, Abdelbassit Hajj al-Hassan and Abdelrauf Abu Zeid Mohammed Hamza. One of the four is the son of a leader of pacifist Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna, which is linked to Wahhabism — a hardline form of Sunni Islam practised mainly in Saudi Arabia — but is not involved in politics. The killings sent shockwaves through the sizeable Western community in Khartoum, a city usually considered one of the safest in Africa. Most Western nationals work in embassies, for NGOs or the United Nations. The United States, however, advises its citizens against visiting Sudan. A group calling itself Ansar al-Tawhid claimed it killed Granville and his driver, according to SITE, a US-based organisation which monitors Islamist websites. Federal Bureau of Investigation officers from the United States helped to investigate the killings, which came amid strains with Khartoum over a government crackdown on a revolt in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Kober prison, built in the 19th century on the banks of the Blue Nile, houses mostly political prisoners and Darfur rebels.

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Convicted killers of US diplomat in Sudan escape