Darfur rebels sentenced to death

A Sudanese court yesterday sentenced another two Darfur rebels to death for a deadly 2008 attack, raising to 105 the number of Justice and Equality Movement fighters ordered hanged for the raid.

"Abdullah Ali Adam and Al-Murdi Bakheet were sentenced to death by hanging," for their alleged involvement in the unprecedented attack on the Sudanese capital's twin city of Omdurman in May 2008, their lawyer Adam Bakr told AFP. More than 222 people were killed when rebels thrust more than 1,000 kilometres across the sandy expanse from conflict-torn Darfur in western Sudan to Omdurman, just across the Nile from the presidential palace.

Special tribunals set up in the wake of the attack have judged the alleged rebels in batches, with the last sentencing handed down in June 2009 against 12 rebels.

During yesterday's hearing, a third suspect was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of "collaboration" with the rebels, Dr Bakr said, adding that he will be appealing the verdicts.

The court also found a fourth man guilty of involvement in the deadly attack but freed him because he is over 70 years old, the lawyer said.