{{The US Department of State has offered $5 million in rewards for information on two Sudanese terrorist suspects it believes are in Somalia “but could be anywhere else” in the world.}}
In a teleconference with journalists, the US Assistant Director for Threat Investigations and Analysis Directorate Robert Hartung said Wednesday the cash prize would be targeting the arrest of the runaways linked with the murder of an American diplomat and a US aid agency employee in Khartoum in 2008.
The suspects, Abdelbasit Alhaj Alhasan Haj Hamad and Mohamed Makawi Ibrahim Mohamed are wanted for the 2008 New Year shooting of USAID diplomat John Granville and the agency’s Sudanese employee Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama.
“We don’t know exactly where Mr Makawi or Mr Hamad may be, and so they could be anywhere and this is just an incentive for people to come out and speak to us, to provide this kind of information on either of these individuals,” Mr Hartung said.
The two individuals, who the US government also link to the terrorist group al-Qaeda’s Sudanese cell, had initially been convicted alongside two others in a Sudanese Court in 2009 but broke jail in July 2010.
Two other individuals who escaped with them were rearrested.
Mr Hartung said the two are believed to have escaped to Somalia, a country that has been terrorised by Al-Qaeda-linked grouping Al-Shabaab.
However, he refused to comment on whether the US government has also been using the cooperation of AU forces and the new Somali government to arrest the suspects.
“I can’t speak on what we may or we may not have done to find any of these individuals. But again, whether someone is in Somalia or another part of the world, we hope that, by offering the reward for both of these individuals, people will provide information regarding these individuals to the US government and we will act on this information,” he said.
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