PUBLIC AI Index: AFR 54/006/2008

24 January 2008

Further Information on UA 330/07(AFR 54/069/2007, 13 December 2007) Fear for Safety/ Incommunicado detention

SUDAN Ammar Najm Eddine Jalak (m), Secretary of Media and Culture for Khartoum State for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

Ammar Najm Eddine Jalak was released without charge at from the headquarters of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) around 1am on 22 January. He had been detained at Dabak Prison, north of Khartoum.

He had been arrested by members of the NISS at Khartoum airport shortly after 5am on 23 November as he was on his way to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Though not formally charged, Ammar Najm Eddine Jalak was accused by his interrogators of liaising with the Sudan Liberation Army/ (SLA), which operates in Darfur, toward building an armed movement in Nubia, in the north of Sudan. He was taken to Dabak Prison.

Ammar Najm Eddine Jalak was reportedly tortured, and he has said that many other detainees whom he met in Debek Prison had also been tortured. He said that he suffered “very bad treatment, anything and everything you can imagine”. This included electric shocks. He said to Amnesty International: “Thank you so much. I was in a very bad situation, being tortured and no one knew anything about me. When they released me they told me that it was because of international pressure.”

He is now at home, though aprevious knee injury caused by torture in detention in 2003 (see UA 91/03, AFR 54/018/2003) was exacerbated by a blow to the knee inflicted during the recent interrogations.

No further action is requested from the UA network. Many thanks to all who sent appeals.