Sudan frees 25 S. Sudanese death-row inmates

5 January 2017: the twenty five inmates who were sentenced to death by the government of Sudan have been pardoned, says the Humanitarian Attaché at South Sudan’s Embassy in Khartoum. The freed inmates are among the group which was arrested in 2011, before the two countries separated, for rebelling against the then Sudan government. They were charged with, among others, treason, terrorism and crimes against the state.

Abraham Kebi says the government of Sudan released the inmates following series of meetings between Khartoum and Juba regarding the fate of the prisoners. He says the inmates have been in prisons in Sudan since 2011 before the self-determination referendum for South Sudan. Mr. Kebi says two officials from the embassy in Khartoum accompanied the inmates to Juba. “But there they are freed from any punishment against them, so that they can go back to their country South Sudan,” says the Attaché. Mr. Kebi says the pardoned inmates come from different parts of the country.