A Sudanese court sentenced to death six members of a major Darfur rebel group on Tuesday, including a top commander, the group's lawyer said. The ruling is another blow to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), considered to be the most militarily potent of the western region's various rebel factions. Government forces killed the group's leader in December.
"The judge ruled to execute six of the accused and sentenced the seventh to 10 years in prison because he is elderly, 73 years old," said Tohany Abdelrahim, a lawyer for the group. The charges included terrorism, illegally carrying arms and murder, she said. Ibrahim al-Maz, a senior member of the rebel group, was among those sentenced to death.
JEM spokesman Gibreel Adam Bilal called the decision an "injustice", and accused Sudan's security agencies of pressuring the court to issue the sentence. "The decision had already been made by the Sudan government and the Sudan security agencies," he said. Sudan's foreign ministry spokesman did not immediately answer phone calls seeking comment. The government has previously denied its courts are influenced by politics.