Sudan: Embassy says Garang death “too sensitive”

(SomaliNet) Claims by the widow of former Sudanese Vice-President John Garang de Mabior that he was assassinated was on Monday described by the Sudanese Embassy as “too sensitive”.

Mr Majok Guandong, the Ambassador, said he was not ready to comment on the issue raised by Mrs Rebecca Garang, over the weekend, which he described as “personal.”

Guandong, however, said they were still studying the claims before making an official statement later this week. Speaking through his press attache, Ms Somaya Abdel Sadig, Mr Guandong said the widow did not accuse anyone or group of people of master-minding the alleged assassination plot.

The ambassador revealed that he was among the scores of guests who had attended one of the two functions held over the weekend in honour of the former VP and founding leader of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army/Movement.

Mr Guandong was in the company of Mrs Garang in one of the two functions held to commemorate the second anniversary of his death in a helicopter crash in Southern Sudan.

He attended the public lecture at the University of Nairobi in the afternoon, but not the dinner party held at the Grand Regency Hotel, thereafter.

Mrs Garang had said at the dinner that: “When my husband died, I did not come out openly and say he was killed because I knew the consequences. At the back of my mind, I knew my husband had been assassinated.”

This comes for the first time since burying her husband two years ago during a ceremony to honour him posthumously by the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Foundation .

The late Garang died on July 30, 2005, after a Ugandan presidential helicopter he was travelling in crashed as he headed back to southern Sudan, after meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

An investigations report had also revealed that there was no sensor on the plane and that the pilot had been flying at 5,300 feet before crashing into a hill that was 6,000 feet high. –Nation