KHARTOUM
Sudanese authorities have released opposition leader Farouk Abu Eissa after four months of detention, his lawyer said Thursday, asserting that the move was the result of an official pardon issued by President Omar al-Bashir.
"Abu Eissa was released from Kober Prison and is now at home," lawyer Moez Hadra told The Anadolu Agency.
According to Hadra, the pardon also applied to Amin Mekki Medani, the head of an umbrella group of civil society organizations.
Medani had been a co-defendant in the case against Abu Eissa.
The Sudanese authorities have yet to comment on Hadra's assertions about the presidential pardon.
The release of both men comes only days before Sudan's presidential and parliamentary polls.
Last December, Sudanese authorities arrested Abu Eissa following his return from Addis Ababa, where he had signed an agreement with the Revolutionary Front, a coalition of four armed groups fighting the Khartoum government.
On the same day, police also arrested Medani, a leader of the "Civil Society Initiative," a coalition of Sudanese civil society organizations.
Medani, too, had signed the agreement with the Revolutionary Front.
The agreement had called for "dismantling" the al-Bashir regime, calling on various anti-regime factions to join forces with a view to fomenting a popular uprising.
The agreement was signed after the government and armed groups failed to hammer out a cease-fire agreement.
Khartoum, for its part, slammed the agreement as a "betrayal of the nation."
In February, al-Bashir conditioned the release of the pair on a public apology by both men for "violating the country's criminal code" by signing the agreement with rebel groups.
Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to kick off across Sudan on Monday.
Al-Bashir and 15 other candidates will contest the three-day poll.
The opposition has called for the postponement of polls and the formation of an interim government to oversee the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of "free and fair" elections.
