Sudan opposition leader Farouk Abu Issa was released on Thursday after more than four months in jail in Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
The release is a possible conciliatory gesture ahead of elections that nearly all opposition parties are boycotting.
Farouk Abu Issa, head of an umbrella group of opposition parties, and prominent human rights lawyer Amin Mekki were arrested in December after signing a unity agreement with a rebel group in an alliance aimed at uniting opposition to President Omar al-Bashir’s 25-year rule.
The document called for a transitional government in Sudan, where Bashir has ruled since seizing power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989.
Sudanese will vote for a new parliament and president on April 13-15, in elections that are widely expected to renew the 25-year rule of Bashir.
The opposition says it will shun the event, citing deteriorating freedoms and a lack of progress towards national reconciliation in the term of Bashir, who has been buoyed by the International Criminal Court’s decision to shelve an inquiry into possible war crimes in Darfur.
