SUDAN: JUNTA DROPS DEATH PENALTY AGAINST REBEL LEADERS

Sudan’s ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) has cancelled the death penalty that was issued against Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) leader Malik Agar, his deputy Yasir Arman, and 15 others in 2014.
The TMC said in a statement on 8 August 2019 that the decision to abolish the death penalty came as part of measures to achieve peace in Sudan, confirmed by the Constitutional Declaration agreed on by the junta and the Forces for Freedom and Change a week ago.
In March 2014, after a nine-months trial, a special court in Singa, capital of Sennar, sentenced 17 members of the SPLM-N to death by hanging in absentia. Forty-six other detainees were sentenced to life imprisonment, while 31 were acquitted.
Those sentenced were among about 100 detainees who faced trial for their alleged involvement in the outbreak of the war in Blue Nile state in September 2011.