Sudan newspaper suspended after 'spy' report

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Sudan's intelligence agency has suspended publication of a newspaper which tried to report allegations the agency spied on an opposition political party, an editor said on Wednesday.

It is the third time this year the intelligence service has shut down a newspaper.

Al Tayar, an independent daily, received a phone call informing it of the decision, said the deputy editor-in-chief, Abdelbagi Alzafier.

The Sudan Media Centre, which is close to the security apparatus, issued a brief statement saying: "The general manager of the Sudan security service has issued a decision suspending the publication of Al Tayar newspaper."

An AFP reporter who went to the newspaper building Wednesday evening found it closed, after staff vacated the premises.

Security officers had earlier seized all copies being printed of its Monday edition, which carried on the front page allegations by the Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi. He accused the security service of planting three bugging devices in the offices of his Popular Congress Party.

The veteran politician is a former mentor who became one of President Omar al-Bashir's fiercest critics.

Al Tayar's chief editor, Osman Mirghani, said earlier he thought the censorship on Monday was linked, not to the Turabi article, but to his paper's recent coverage of alleged government corruption.

In late January intelligence agents seized copies of the Al-Jarida independent daily newspaper.

Also last month, authorities ordered the independent daily Al-Wan to suspend publication, and they shut down Rai Al-Shaab, the newspaper of Turabi's party.