AI-generated illustration · Source : Reuters' X
The Sudanese army has detained Ahmed Haroun, an Islamist leader and chairman of Sudan’s former ruling National Congress Party, two officials in the party told Reuters on Sunday, November 8. Reuters did not say where the detention took place.
Haroun is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Reuters said the report was a developing story, and there was no immediate public comment in the reports from the Sudanese army or the court on the detention. LNA could not independently confirm where, when or how he was detained.
Haroun, 62, leads the National Congress Party, which governed Sudan under former President Omar al-Bashir until Bashir was overthrown in April 2019. He had served as an assistant to the former president and as governor of South Kordofan state.
The ICC has sought Haroun since 2007 on 42 counts of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to the conflict in Darfur in 2003 and 2004, according to The Sudan Times. The United States announced a reward of up to US$5 million in 2024 for information leading to his arrest, transfer or conviction, the newspaper reported.
The Darfur situation was referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council under Resolution 1593 of 2005, which requires Sudan to cooperate with the court. ICC prosecutors have repeatedly called on the Sudanese government to arrest and surrender Bashir, Haroun and former defence minister Abdel Raheem Hussein so that judicial proceedings can begin, Dabanga reported.
Haroun left Kober prison in Khartoum during the early days of the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that broke out in April 2023, according to Al Jazeera. He recently gave his first filmed interview since the fall of Bashir’s government, a lengthy conversation broadcast by the platform Sudan Podcast, Al Jazeera reported.
In that interview, Haroun blamed the security committee led by former vice-president Awad Ibn Auf and former intelligence chief Salah Gosh for the collapse of Bashir’s rule, describing it as a betrayal from within, Al Jazeera said. He described his party’s relationship with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as that of any president with political forces, and proposed a proportional representation electoral system and a new social contract among political forces.
His public reappearance drew criticism from Sudanese legal and political experts, who accused the Port Sudan-based military authorities of shielding people wanted by international justice, The Sudan Times reported. The newspaper noted that neither his appearance nor the experts’ accusations independently established that senior officials were protecting him.
The Sudanese army has been fighting the RSF since April 2023 in a war that has driven millions of people from their homes. The army-aligned government is based in Port Sudan.
Source: Reuters’ X; Al Jazeera; The Sudan Times; Dabanga
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