A Sudanese media centre close to the government said...

A Sudanese media centre close to the government said that 200 members of pro-government militias accused of ethnic cleansing in Darfur had been tried and that some had received death sentences.
The report coincided with a demand by US President George W. Bush that Sudan halt the violence by the Janjaweed militias in the troubled western region and ensure that aid reaches the area. The Sudanese Media Center (SMC), reporting from Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, quoted South Darfur Judiciary chairman Abdel Rahman Yagoub Ibrahim as saying a special tribunal had tried the militiamen.
The fighters from different tribes had been found guilty of waging war, assault and armed robbery, Ibrahim was reported to have said, adding that some received the death penalty.
The media centre did not say how many were sentenced to death. It is not clear when the sentences were to be carried out.
The media centre said the tribunal was chaired by Judge Mukhtar Ibrahim Adam and that he heard testimony from witnesses to a recent incident of banditry on the Nyala-Ed Deien highway allegedly carried out by nine of the Janjaweed.
More than 10,000 people have died and over a million have been displaced since rebel groups rose up against Khartoum in February 2003, claiming that the mainly black African region has been ignored by the Arab government.
The uprising prompted a bloody crackdown by Sudanese troops and the Janjaweed, which had carried out what aid and rights groups called a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing.