Sudan quashes killers' death sentences

Article from: Agence France-Presse
Sudan quashes killers' death sentences
From correspondents in Khartoum
August 13, 2009 via Herald Sun, Australia

A SUDANESE appeal court has overnight quashed death sentences handed down last year against four men convicted of the murders of an official of the US Agency for International Development and his driver.

The court heard that the family of John Granville had asked for the four to be jailed for life rather than executed, and that, after initially calling for the death penalty, the family of driver Abdel Rahman Abbas had also changed their minds.

The pair were killed on New Year's Day 2008 and four young Islamists were convicted of the murders.

The court of first instance will now have to reconsider its judgement. Sudanese law does not prevent it from imposing new death sentences despite the appeal court decision.