Death penalty upheld in slaying
A ruling in Sudan has upheld death sentences for four Sudanese terrorists who assassinated John Granville, an American diplomat who grew up in South Buffalo.
U. S. Attorney Kathleen M. Mehltretter said her office got word this week that a judge in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, had affirmed sentences — originally pronounced after a trial that ended in June.
“The judge indicated that it was an appropriate sentence and that the Granville family had requested the death penalty,” Mehltretter said.
The men have been sentenced to death by hanging, but they still have rights to appeal to the Sudan Supreme Court, the prosecutor said Wednesday.
Granville, 33, was known for his efforts to negotiate a peace treaty in Sudan, a nation with a brutal history of civil war and genocide.
A graduate of Canisius High School who served in the Peace Corps, Granville was working in Sudan as a diplomat with the U. S. Agency for International Development.
He and Abdelrahman Abbas, his Sudanese driver, were shot to death Jan. 1, 2008, while driving home from a New Year’s Eve party at the home of a British diplomat.
The convicted men claim that they are innocent and that they gave videotaped confessions only after they were tortured.
According to Mehltretter, federal prosecutors have not ruled out the possibility of filing charges against Granville’s killers in the U. S. courts.
“We’ll continue to monitor the situation in Sudan’s courts until it is concluded,” she said Wednesday. “These men still have appeal rights.”
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