Ex-minister suspected of genocide escaped from prison

Ahmed Haroun says he is ready to stand trial when he resumes his work Credit: ASHRAF SHAZLI/AFP

Sudanese war crimes Suspect , indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and rape, has been released from prison as Sudan teeters on the brink of civil war.

Ahmed Haroun, the former Minister of State for the Interior, was released from prison when the Rapid Support Forces ( RSF) fighting the Sudanese armed forces released all prisoners from the Kober prison in the capital Khartoum.

The prison also held deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir until he was transferred to a military hospital shortly before the outbreak of hostilities on 15 April .

Sudan's interior ministry on Tuesday accused the RSF of breaking into five prisons and releasing prisoners between April 21 and 24. The RSF is led by Mohamed Hamdan Daghlo, known as Hemedti, who is fighting for power with the Sudanese warlord Abdel Fattah Al Buran.

Thousands of convicted criminals, including those on death row, were held in Kober prison. , as well as high-ranking and low-level officials of the Bashir regime, which was overthrown in 2019.

Rapid support forces in the East Nile region of Greater Khartoum Credit: AFP

Sudanese authorities and RSF have exchanged accusations over the release of prisoners, and police say militants broke into five prisons over the weekend, killing several guards and opening gates.< /p>

RSF accused the authorities of releasing Harun and others.

«This war unleashed by the overthrown regime will bring the country to collapse,» said the Sudanese Forces for Freedom and Change, the political group leading an internationally backed plan for a transition to civilian rule, derailed by the outbreak of hostilities.

After 11 days of fighting between the SLO and the Sudanese military, the US brokered the latest attempt to stop the violence, a 72-hour ceasefire that began on Tuesday. But on Tuesday evening, the Sudanese military resumed airstrikes against the RSF.

Meanwhile, Haroun said in a statement released on Sudanese television that he and other officials from the Bashir era have left the prison, but he is ready to stand trial when he resumes work.

"We have made a decision be safe from the lack of security, water, food and treatment, and the deaths of many prisoners in Kober" Haroun told the Sudanese daily al-Sudani, which has ties to Bashir.

Chronology of the conflict in Sudan

He said that he and other imprisoned members of the regime «have now taken responsibility for our protection into their own hands.» elsewhere.

Other former officials were also transferred, along with Bashir, 77, to the Aliya military hospital, the military said, including former Defense Minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein, another of five Sudanese men wanted by the ICC.

The ICC filed charges against Bashir in 2009, when he was still President of Sudan, accusing him of responsibility for crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forced displacement, torture and rape. war crimes and genocide related to the conflict in Darfur.

The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 people were killed and another 2.5 million displaced during the conflict that began in 2003 and continues to this day not completely resolved.

Bashir was overthrown in a 2019 coup d'état following massive protests against his rule. In 2021, Sudanese officials said they would hand over Bashir and other wanted officials to an international body in The Hague, although the handover never took place.