With the first shot fired in the 15 April war, thousands of prisoners in Khartoum found themselves outside the walls where they had been confined for decades. These prisoners escaped from three main prisons: Al-Huda, Soba and Omdurman Women’s Prisons. Statistics indicate that the total number of prisoners freed by the war is estimated at 7,000 prisoners, including repeat offenders, those sentenced to death and cheque crimes, including National Congress affiliates, imprisoned in connection with corruption and the coup against the constitutional order in 1989.
Late confession:
The process of emptying the prisons witnessed mutual accusations between the two parties to the war, and each side disavowed responsibility for the release of prisoners, especially those with serious offences.
The Sudanese army accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of striking Al-Huda prison to forcibly release prisoners. The RSF denied that it was the one who released the prisoners, and accused the Sudanese army of opening the prison gates to free National Congress members, as the process was repeated in different states that were included in the military operations, such as Al-Jazeera, Darfur and Sennar states.
After 15 months of silence, the de facto authorities acknowledged the release of inmates, which they had previously denied and accused the RSF of, in the words of Interior Minister Khalil Basha Sairin, who said in statements to Al Arabiya TV that they released the leaders of the former Bashir regime, ‘provided they are in safe areas.’ The minister added: ‘We released the leaders of the former Bashir regime.’
The minister added: ‘We released 19,790 prisoners He pointed out that former President Omar al-Bashir and some politicians are still in the Medical Arms Hospital in Omdurman, recalling the statement of the security committee of ousted President Omar al-Bashir, when Defence Minister Awad Ben Auf came out and read the committee’s statement to the protesters at the General Command, saying that the armed forces have kept the head of the regime in a safe place.’ (the armed forces have kept the head of the regime in a safe place).
A rhetoric and a lie:
Commenting on the Interior Minister’s statement, Bakri Al-Jak, spokesperson for the Coordination of Democratic and Civilian Forces (Taqaddam), said, ‘The truth that all Sudanese know is that the remnants of the Bashir regime from the money and power alliance believed that they could make partial changes, control change in Sudan, and defeat the December revolution.’ The remnants of the Bashir regime thought they could make partial changes, control change in Sudan, and defeat the December revolution. When Plan A failed, they staged a coup in October 2021 as Plan B. When the coup failed and found resistance from all political and civilian forces, they went to war as the last option, to erase the change and revolution project from the memory of the Sudanese people. They are still fueling the war and hate speech to move the conflict to a new political square based on the re-alignment of Sudanese society not on the basis of the position on the revolution and change, but on ethnic, regional and ideological alignment.
In a statement to Rhino, Al-Jak emphasizes that the position on the release of Bashir regime prisoners must necessarily be understood in this context, and any talk about them being held in safe areas is a pure ‘rhetoric’ and an outright lie, for example, the prisoner ‘Ahmed Haroun’, wanted by the Criminal Court, is one of those who work in supporting the war effort and mobilizing for the fighting.
Al-Jak questioned the intention of the de facto authority to even take custody of these criminals, after some of them were allowed to obtain official papers and leave the country. He added: ‘We know that if they could, they would return them to the authority, not to prisons.
The spokesperson for Taqaddam said that the Minister of Interior should tell the Sudanese people how to protect themselves from the salvation gangs, before he protects himself from the three thousand prisoners sentenced to death, because those sentenced to death may have been convicted of killing one soul, but the ‘Bashir gang’ has set fire to the length and breadth of the country, displacing 25 million citizens, including 10 million refugees, yet it does not care about what has happened and what will happen to the Sudanese as a result of the continuation of the war.
The Islamists’ dream of power:
In the context of analyses that indicate that the war was originally aimed at liquidating the December Revolution, the war authorities worked to release the affiliates of the Islamic Movement starting with the October 25 coup, which was followed by the release of large numbers of those arrested in connection with investigations into corruption crimes, and the cancellation of all decisions of the Empowerment Removal Committee. In this regard, legal expert ‘Omar Osman’ believes that such crimes are not subject to statute of limitations and will find their way to justice once the political situation in the country stabilizes. He told Rhino that the danger lies in the escape of these defendants and the smuggling of money out of the country.
For his part, political analyst ‘Mohamed al-Sayed’ said that the army leaders and the ‘so-called sovereign council’ released the symbols of the former regime as a reward for the Islamist and tribal groups that sat in front of the Republican Palace in October 2021, strangled the transitional government, caused its downfall, and braked the disempowerment committee after it reached far stages in exposing the corruption of the Islamic movement and hitting it economically.
In his statement to Rhino, Al-Sayed emphasizes that the same groups supported and support Al-Burhan, and are the ones pushing him towards war now, and are the ones obstructing his access to the negotiation table, and are still clinging to power, and are trying to return to the scene under the umbrella of the army.
