The Special Court in Sinja headed by Judge Abdelmoneim Younis has sentenced in absentia 17 people to be executed by hanging, including SPLM-N leaders Yasser Arman and Malik Agar. 

The verdict ends a nine-month trial, and comes three days after the latest African Union statement calling on SPLM-N to accept the latest draft framework paper for a solution to the conflicts in Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

Forty-six other detainees are sentenced to prison for life and 31 are released, according to lawyer Al Tijani Hassan, who spoke to Radio Tamazuj from Sinja, the capital of Sennar State.

The sentenced detainees are among about 100 who faced trial for alleged involvement in the insurrection in Blue Nile starting in September 2011, after which about 170,000 people from the state fled into neighboring countries Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Agar, one of those sentenced to death, was elected governor of Blue Nile State in 2010. He is chairman of SPLM-N and the umbrella rebel group Sudan Revolutionary Front.

Yasser Arman, the other most prominent figure to be sentenced in absentia, was head of the SPLM-N delegation at the latest peace talks in Addis Ababa.

File photo: Malik Agar