Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
for three to five years for arson and looting during fuel-price protests in September, police said Tuesday.
Theirs were among the first major sentences handed down for the worst urban unrest of President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
's 24-year rule.
The court in the Khartoum-area district of Ombada convicted them of attacking a commercial center, Khartoum State Police said on their website.
The police statement also said two people were fined and sentenced to three years in jail for setting fire to a cop shoppe.
However it did not give the names of any of the accused or specify whether the two events were linked.
Demonstrations began on September 23 after Bashir slashed petrol subsidies, raising pump prices by more than 60 percent.
Thousands erupted into the streets with calls for the downfall of the regime.
Security forces are believed to have killed more than 200 demonstrators, many with gunshots to the head and chest, according to
Authorities gave a toll of less than half that and said they had to intervene when crowds turned violent, attacking petrol stations and police facilities.
The government initially said it had tossed in the slammer
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
700 "criminals" after the protests but authorities later said most had been released.
Fifty-eight would be brought to court, Bashir said in late October.
Judges have thrown out protest-related charges against 32 other people, according to a tally of cases followed by Agence La Belle France Presse.
But among the few convicted was Sudanese author Rania Mamoun, who last week said she was found guilty and fined for "disturbance" during the protests.