Sudan: Opposition leader Al-Turabi arrested, again

The power struggle between Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese opposition politician, and his former ally Omar al-Bashir, the country's president, shows no signs of ending. If anything, it could well be intensifying, judging by the late-night arrest on Saturday of al-Turabi. He has been in and out of custody during his political career, which has also been marked by remarkable shifts in alignments. In the last few years, while has been in the opposition, al-Turabi has been imprisoned or held under house arrest on several occasions. His relationship with al-Bashir was, of course, not always this antagonistic. Indeed, they were very close in the past: al-Turabi was one of al-Bashir's must trusted advisers when the latter seized power in 1989. Al-Turabi was then then the chairman of al-Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP). But the two split over the introduction of a bill to limit the president's powers in 1999, a move which al-Bashir countered by dissolving parliament and declaring a state of emergency.