The Transitional Military Council issued Thursday a decree to revoke death sentences issued against Sudan People's Liberation Movement’s chairman Malik Akar and its secretary-general Yasser Arman.
Al-Taher Haja, spokesman of the council, told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the decision was part of the implementation of the measures intending to create confidence-building measures aiming to achieve peace in Sudan.
This decision coincided with the Sudanese security authorities releasing former vice president Bakri Hassan Saleh and three leaders of the former regime.
A court in Sinjah (in the south of Sudan) issued in March 2014 death sentences against 17 leaders of armed movements that resisted Bashir's regime after the rebellion broke out in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in September 2011.
In June, the military authorities deported Arman and his companions Mubarak Erdul and Khamis Jalab to the capital of South Sudan, Juba, after days of their return to Khartoum to participate in ongoing negotiations between the council and the popular movement leaders within the Forces of Freedom and Change.
Back then, the TMC justified its decision saying that Arman is facing an execution sentence and the legal procedures relevant to amnesty weren’t taken. Thus, it preferred to move him to Juba, which approved to receive him.
