Military joins probe into Sudan car blast

Military experts have joined the probe into a car blast which killed an east Sudan businessman, official media reported, about a year after Sudan blamed Israel for an air strike in the same region.

The early Tuesday explosion killed Nassir Awadallah Ahmed Saeed, 65, in Port Sudan town.

SUNA, the official news agency, late Wednesday quoted Red Sea state police chief Major General Haydar Mohammed Sulieman as saying experts from the capital Khartoum had arrived to take part in the investigation.

“He stated that the team includes experts from the armed forces, criminal evidence and the central investigations” divisions, SUNA said.

Witnesses told AFP they heard an explosion and saw the car on fire with two holes nearby in the ground.

In April last year, Sudan said it had irrefutable evidence that Israeli attack helicopters carried out a missile and machinegun strike on a car about 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of Port Sudan.

Two Sudanese in the car were killed, Sudan’s foreign ministry said at the time, denying the country was harboring militant groups.

Israeli officials had previously expressed concern about arms smuggling through Sudan, which has close ties with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Last year’s attack mirrored a similar strike by foreign aircraft on a truck convoy reportedly laden with weapons in eastern Sudan in January 2009.

Sudan, which is suffering from an economic crisis, has been seeking an end to U.S. economic sanctions first imposed in 1997 partly over its alleged support for blacklisted terrorist groups.

The foreign ministry in Khartoum had no comment on Tuesday’s explosion while the investigation continues.