A SUDANESE newspaper editor who was kidnapped by unknown armed men was found beheaded, a day after he was reported snatched from outside his home in the capital Khartoum, an Interior Ministry source said. A photograph showed Mohamed Taha's body bound at the feet and hands with his severed head next to his body, a witness said. He was found on a dirt street in a middle-class residential district of southern Khartoum. No one has claimed responsibility for the killing.Kidnapping of civilians is common in Sudan's war-torn western region Darfur and was a feature in the south during large-scale conflict there, but is very rare in the capital. Mr Taha was arrested last year and his al-Wifaq paper closed for three months after it published a series of articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammed, which were condemned by Sudan's powerful Islamists.
Local papers quoted Mr Taha's family as saying a group of men bundled him into a car outside his home in north Khartoum and sped off towards central Khartoum. Mr Taha was an ally of the Government, which took power in a military coup in 1989. The government in northern Sudan follows strict Sharia law but has been opposed by some Islamist organisations.