Sudanese Security Service Arrests NUP Leading Member

Mohamed Sati, NUP leading member

April 21, 2022 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese security service arrested a leading member of the National Umma Party (NUP)  Mohamed Sati and took him to one of their facilities, his party and several officials said on Thursday.

Mohamed Sati who is the Head of the Funds Receipt and Inventory Department at the Empowerment Removal Committee (ERC) was first summoned to the headquarters of the suspended body by the security service before to take him to one of their buildings.

According to a statement released after his arrest, the police refused to keep him in their detention facilities. A NUP senior official late on Thursday told the Sudan Tribune that Sati is now held in a facility of the Community Security Department at the General Intelligence Service.

His arrest intervenes a few days after the head of the Sovereign Council, Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, pledged earlier this week to release the political detainees accused of embezzling from funds and assets confiscated by the ERC from the former regime dignitaries and officials.

After the coup, al-Burhan had arrested the same figures of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) including a member of the Sovereign Council. They had been released in December 2021 before detaining them in February under criminal charges.

The tripartite mechanism of UNITAMS, African Union and IGAD requested al-Burhan to take confidence-building measures before launching an intra-Sudanese dialogue. The delay in the release of the political detainees hampers the process.

“The National Umma Party condemns the continuation of these arrests and the infringement of public freedoms by the coup authority directed against the leaders of the political forces and the Resistance Committees,” said the NUP in its statement

In a message to the party he succeeded in sending to the party and seen by the Sudan Tribune, Sati said that he had expected his detention.

“The situation has returned to what it was before the revolution, with the same people and the same methods,” he added.

Sati’s arrest came after the recent rejection of the National Umma Party to sign a political agreement aimed at establishing a new political coalition loyal to the military leaders.

Dozens of political detainees are held in prisons and detention centres, including 18 leaders of the suspended empowerment committee, in addition to large numbers of Resistance Committees activists.

(ST)