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| Africa Horn |
| Suspects in US diplomat's murder appear in Sudanese court |
| 2008-08-18 |
| Five suspects appeared in court in Sudan on Sunday in connection with the New Year's Day murder of an American diplomat and his driver that sent shockwaves through the Western community in Khartoum. The preliminary hearing at the eastern court in the capital lasted around 45 minutes and was attended by US Embassy personnel amid a heavy Sudanese security presence outside, AFP correspondents said. Judge Said Ahmad al-Badri read out the names and ages of the five bearded Sudanese men, aged between 23 and 35, who sat in the dock in traditional white gowns, and at one point were smiling and chatting among themselves. Badri then adjourned legal proceedings until August 31, asking the families of both victims to appoint a lawyer, either a Sudanese or American provided they spoke Arabic. John Granville, 33, who worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and his 40-year-old Sudanese driver Abdel-Rahman Abbas were hit in their car by a hail of bullets before dawn on New Year's Day. Among those in the dock was a 23-year-old son of the head of Ansar al-Sunna, a pacifist Muslim sect in Sudan that has no political affiliations but has links to the orthodox Wahhabi sect dominant in Saudi Arabia. The other four suspects were listed as an engineering student, a merchant, a former security officer from Khartoum and a driver from Atbara, in northern Sudan. The suspects proclaimed loudly in Arabic "Peace Be Upon You" upon arrival and asked that they be allowed to perform their prayers on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest. FBI officers from the US helped investigate the killings. Although it was not clear whether the suspects belonged to a specific group, a group calling itself Ansar al-Tawhid claimed the killing in a statement posted on a militant Web site on January 4. The organization said the attack was in response to attempts to raise the banner of Christianity over Sudan, according to the US-based SITE intelligence group which monitors Islamist Web sites. SITE did not offer further details about the group, whose claim could not be authenticated. However, variations of its name, which means "Partisans of Unity," have been used by Islamist extremists abroad, including in Iraq. Relations between Sudan and the United States are largely strained, most recently over the five-year conflict in the African country's western region of Darfur where Washington has accused Khartoum of genocide. Granville was killed one day after US President George W. Bush signed a law encouraging divestment from companies which do business in Sudan in an effort to up economic pressure on Khartoum over Darfur. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Ansar al-Tawid is likely a branch or offshoot of Zarqawi's al-Tawhid organization that he and Abu Qatada established to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. Parts of al-Tawhid were incorporated into Ansar al-Islam in the year prior to the Iraq invasion. There were indications that he kept al-Tawhid separate from his al-Qaeda in Iraq organization -- AQI for Iraq internal operations, al-Tawhid for international ops. |
| Posted by: Fred 2008-08-18 12:16 |
| #2 FBI officers from the US helped investigate the killings. Have they determined that "this incident is unrelated to terrorism" yet? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-08-18 10:11 |
| #1 variations of its name, which means "Partisans of Unity," have been used by Islamist extremists abroad, including in Iraq. Tawhid is "monotheism", not "unity". From the Encyclopedia Jihad, it also translates to "Or Else". |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2008-08-18 09:53 |