Sudanese question witnesses in American’s death

updated 3:38 p.m. ET Jan. 2, 2008

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudanese authorities questioned witnesses on Wednesday in the slaying of a U.S. diplomat killed in a driveby shooting as he returned from a New Year's party in the capital.

One woman said she rushed to help the badly wounded American, who pleaded, "I am dying, I need help," the independent Al-Rai Al-Amm newspaper reported.

John Granville, 33, an official for the U.S. Agency for International Development, was being driven home at about 4 a.m. Tuesday when another vehicle cut off his car and opened fire before fleeing the scene, the Sudanese Interior Ministry said.

The diplomat's driver, Abdel-Rahman Abbas, was killed. Granville, who was hit by five bullets but initially survived, died after surgery, said Walter Braunohler, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum.

Sudanese officials insist the shooting was not a terrorist attack, but the U.S. embassy said it was too soon to determine the motive.

Investigation underway
In Washington, the State Department said investigators from its Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the FBI were heading to Khartoum. Such probes are routine when U.S. officials are killed in uncertain circumstances overseas.

"They will be sending a joint team to Sudan to investigate the murders, collect any evidence they possibly can, work closely with the Sudanese government to determine who is responsible for these murders and bring them to justice," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

He said the Sudanese government had agreed to admit the team, the first elements of which will come from U.S. diplomatic missions in the region but will be joined as soon as possible afterward by additional investigators from Washington.

The acting U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum, Roberto Powers, met with Sudan's newly appointed Foreign Minister Deng Alor to review the latest developments in the investigation.

usaid.gov file An undated photograph from the U.S. Agency for International Development's Web site shows John Granville, center, a U.S. embassy official who was shot to death in Sudan on Tuesday.

"We are working closely with Sudanese authorities," Powers said in a short statement after his meeting Wednesday.

The Foreign Ministry said Sudanese security services are "working actively to pursue the culprits, identify them and bring them to justice," the official SUNA news agency reported.

A Sudanese coroner, Ogail Swar al-Zahab, said Granville had been shot in the head, neck and stomach and died of a ruptured liver.

The driver's family said the two victims were heading home from a New Year's party at the home of a British diplomat when the attack occurred. The Al-Rai Al-Amm newspaper quoted a woman, Nimat Malik, who said she lived nearby and rushed to help the American.

Malik told the paper she had some medical training and wanted to try to stop his bleeding using her robes, but others bystanders warned her that she could later face trouble for tampering with evidence.

"But I saw the need to help him so I got the police car to take him to hospital to receive medical assistance," she told the paper.

'Too early to tell' if terror related
Maj. Gen. Abdin el-Tahir, the director of criminal investigations, was quoted by Sudanese media as saying that little material evidence was found on the crime scene. However, el-Tahir said some eyewitnesses have given information that could help police, the semiofficial Sudan Media Center reported.

The media center, which has close links to the government, also cited an unidentified government official as saying the attack was criminally motivated and that there was "no grain of suspicion of an organized terrorist action."

However Braunohler, the embassy spokesman, said it was "too early to tell" whether the attack was terror-related.

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