- Mohanad Osman Yousif Mohamed, one of the men convicted in teh killing of USAID employee John Granville and his Sudanese driver in 2001 (INTERPOL Website)
But one of the men was reportedly re-arrested along with other men who facilitated the breakout. There was no official confirmation of that however.
They were accused of firing fatal shots on John Granville who worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and his Sudanese driver Abdel-Rahman Abbas Rahma on 2008 New Years Eve.
The men are believed to be belonging to an Islamic militant group Ansar al-Tawhid which claimed responsibility for the killing.
Granville was the first American to be killed in Sudan since 1973, when two diplomats were slain by Palestinian militants.
Mohamed’s father, a former minister in the government, told reporters at his home that the group to which his son belonged to, carried to him the news of his demise but refused to say how this was communicated.
"Those Mujahedeen [holy fighters] have their own ways to send out [messages] that we cannot we be aware of and we find them to be right in light of the siege imposed on them by their enemies of the Jews and the Christians, and utilizing all their advanced technologies to track their movements to nab them like birds just as they did with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a few days ago" he said.
He said that he never lost contact with his son whom he described as a martyr and an Islamist who was loyal to his beliefs.
Details of how Mohamed managed to flee to Somalia and the way he was killed there were not disclosed by his family who received mourners at their home in the Sudanese capital some of where chanting ’Allahu Akbar’ [God is Great].
The father suggested that Mohamed joined an Islamist group in Somalia but said that what he knows on that he will not dispel because Jews and Christians are launching a "real war" that targets Islam as a religion.
"I am calling for the government to release the Islamic youth from prison and also for the court to cancel the decision against Mohanad, because they were answering President [Omer Hassan] Al-Bashir’s call when he told them to fight international troops in Darfur," he added.
Many observers said they suspected that despite the death sentence handed down by the Sudanese courts, it was some circles within the government who facilitated their escape from the prison. This is the first time in the history of the Sudan that a prisoner succeeds in making his way out of Kober prison where political figures are normally held when detained.
The U.S. called on Sudan to investigate how the inmates managed to flee.
The Sudanese government is anxiously awaiting its removal from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism which was promised to take place as early as next July.
For a decade after President Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, Sudan became a notorious refuge for militant Islamists.
These included bin Laden, who was killed by US special forces in Pakistan last weekend and who was based in Khartoum between 1991 and 1996, where he ran a thriving construction business and built mujahideen training camps.
But in the last ten years Khartoum has stepped up its counter terrorism cooperation with the U.S. and denounced its support for militant groups.
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