Sudan Arrests 17 in Alleged Coup Plot

[seemslikeadream]

Wednesday March 31, 2004 10:01 PM


By MOHAMED OSMAN

Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - Sudan has detained 10 military officers and seven opposition party members who planned to stage a coup, the defense minister said Wednesday.

Bakri Hassan Salih said state security discovered the group was planning ``acts of subversion on a number of strategic and service establishments.''

``The group was planning to carry out its plot in the coming few days, as a pre-emptive move to abort the current peace process in the country,'' Salih said on state-run television.

Salih said the officers, led by a colonel, had been planning the coup since the middle of last year, assisted by the opposition Popular Congress, whose leader was arrested earlier Wednesday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3925436,00.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. Sudan Arrests Islamic Opposition Leader

Kerry Sheridan
Cairo
31 Mar 2004, 15:54 UTC



AP
Hassan al-Turabi
(File photo)
Sudan's security forces have arrested Islamic opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and close to a dozen of his sympathizers and accused them of attempting to overthrow the government.
Authorities surrounded the home of the 72-year-old head of Sudan's Popular Congress Party and took him into custody during the early morning hours.

A leader of the Islamic movement in Sudan since the 1960s, Mr. al-Turabi has close personal ties to Osama bin Laden, and is said to be the mentor of al-Qaida number-two man Ayman al-Zawahri.

In 1989, Mr. al-Turabi's National Islamic Front took part in a coup that overthrew Sudan's elected government and set up a police state that drew worldwide condemnation for mass executions, torture of prisoners, and suppression of political freedoms.

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=0DA67A15-6E5F-4773-AB882A6CE1236CC6