Following the resignation of Salah Gosh, head of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), Amnesty International has called for the new authorities to launch an investigation into the role he played in the recent killing of Sudanese protestors.
Read our earlier article: Sudanese security forces crackdown on anti-Bashir protesters
Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes released a statement which reads:
“It is crucial that Sudan’s new authorities investigate Salah Gosh’s role in the killings of scores of Sudanese protesters over the past four months as well as allegations of torture, arbitrary detention and other human rights violations under his supervision of Sudan’s NISS. Resignation from power must not mean an escape from accountability for serious human rights violations.
“The new authorities in Sudan must address past human rights violations and undertake desperately needed reforms to ensure that there can be no repeat of the heinous crimes under international law the country has witnessed over the past three decades.
“Sudan’s new authorities must also urgently declare the whereabouts of former President Omar al-Bashir and immediately hand him over to the International Criminal Court to ensure justice can be served for the atrocities committed during his three decades in power.”
Salah Gosh resignation will mean he no longer enjoys the privilege of diplomatic immunity.
Salah Gosh had earned a reputation in the 2000s as a spy chief which US agencies could work against al-Qaeda.
He headed the NISS between 2004 and 2009 being assigned national security adviser by Omar al-Bashir.
He was sacked in 2011 and later arrested under the suspicion that he was planning a coup but released with a presidential pardon in 2013.
In February 2018 he was reappointed as head of NISS.
Middle East Eye reports that NISS has consistently used brutal crackdowns on government opponents and media. They report that NISS agents “frequently confiscated the entire print-runs of newspapers that criticised government policy or reported on anti-government protests”.
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