Sudan Islamist leader released

Turabi used to be a close ally of President Bashir

Sudan has freed the Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi after more than two years in detention and lifted a ban on his party's activities.

Speaking to reporters at his home in Khartoum hours after his release, Mr Turabi said he had been released due to internal and international pressure.

"I will continue working for the same principles for which I was arrested: democracy, freedom of expression and human rights," he said.

Mr Turabi was arrested in February 2001 after a power struggle with his former close ally, President Omar al-Bashir.

Mr Turabi, leader of the Popular National Congress (PNC), was accused of crimes against the state.

Huge pressure

The BBC's East Africa correspondent, Andrew Harding, says that the move is clearly aimed at an international audience.

I knew I would be released close to the peace agreement Hassan al-Turabi Profile: Hassan al-Turabi

He says that the Sudanese Government is under huge pressure from the US and others to end political repression.

Mr Turabi - a hardline Islamic ideologue - remains something of a threat to the Islamic authorities and his release, our correspondent says, is therefore a risky move.

Mr Turabi had been speaker of parliament and President al-Bashir's staunchest ally before the two fell out in 1999.

Mr al-Bashir accused Mr Turabi of trying to grab power and was detained soon after signing a peace deal with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the main rebel group fighting the government for greater autonomy of Southern Sudan.

"I am very close to the SPLA people and they have raised the question of the freedom of all as well as the question of emergency powers, and everyone wants me to share my views on the Southern Sudan problem," Mr Turabi told the BBC Focus on Africa programme.

Self-determination

In August, Sudan promised to free all political detainees as part of peace talks between the government and the SPLA currently taking place in the Kenyan town of Naivasha.

"I knew I would be released close to the peace agreement," said Mr Turabi.

The latest round of the peace talks opened this week aimed at ending more than 30 years of civil war in Sudan.

An estimated two million people have died in the war, mainly through war-induced famine and disease.

In July 2002 the government and the SPLA reached an agreement in Kenya under which the government accepted the right of Southerners to self determination through a referendum after a six-year transition period.

The rebels on their part agreed the maintenance of Islamic law in the north of the country.