The group, led by Bakhit Abdul Karim (Dabjo), signed a peace agreement with the Khartoum government in 2013.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir(Yahoo)
An anti-terrorism court in Khartoum has sentenced 22 South Sudanese nationals to death and three others to life in prison on Wednesday for belonging to a militant group in Darfur.
"The
judge sentenced them to death by hanging on charges of terrorism,
fighting the state, bearing arms against the state and undermining the
constitutional order," Mahjoub Dawoud, defense attorney, told Reuters.
The
defendants belong to the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group
based in Darfur that took up arms against the Sudanese government in
2003, complaining that their region was being marginalised.
The group, led by Bakhit Abdul Karim (Dabjo), signed a peace agreement with the Khartoum government in 2013.
Shortly after the agreement, the group handed in its weapons to the government and in return the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, pardoned members of the group.
However,
the presidential pardon did not include the 25 South Sudanese
nationals. The government considered them foreign fighters and brought
them to trial for bearing arms against Sudan.
Lawyers
of the defendants said they will appeal the court decision next week,
calling the Sudanese authorities to treat their clients as prisoners of
war.
Sudan regularly accuses its neighbour of backing insurgents in its Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions.
South
Sudan, which split away from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war
fuelled by ethnicity and oil, dismisses the allegations and accuses
Khartoum of arming militias in its territory.
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