LOC02:22
23:22 GMT
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (KUNA) - The US State Department has convoked the Sudanese ambassador after Khartoum's freeing of a man convicted of slaying a USAID employee John Granville and his driver Abdelrahman Abbas in 2008.
"In addition, our ambassador in Sudan, John Godfrey, is engaging Sudanese officials at the highest levels on this issue," the State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a press statement Thursday.
"And Deputy Assistant Secretary Peter Lord is heading next week to Khartoum, where he will also take up this critical issue to demand action," he added.
He affirmed that the United States strongly condemned the unilateral January 30th release by Sudanese authorities of Abdul Rauf Abuzaid, the individual convicted of the 2008 killing of John Granville and Abdelrahman Abbas.
Price dismissed the Sudanese claim that the Granville family had extended forgiveness as "false".
"We call on the Sudanese government to exercise all available legal means to reverse this decision and to re-arrest Abuzaid. The 2020 US-Sudan bilateral settlement of legal claims did not address Abuzaid's imprisonment or his sentence," he said.
On Wednesday, the US expressed deep concern over the January 30 release of Abdel-Ra'uf Abuzaid. It stressed that Abdel-Ra'uf Abuzaid remained a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.
"We are deeply troubled by the lack of transparency in the legal process that resulted in the release of the only individual remaining in custody and by the inaccurate assertion that the release was agreed to by the United States Government as part of the Sudanese government's settlement of victims' claims in connection with Sudan's removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2020," Ned Price told reporters, adding that the US would continue to seek clarity about this decision. (end)
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